Today I'll represent my home area a bit, and do a post about an Italian food. As I've surely mentioned before, there is a fairly large Italian-American population in South Jersey, so the local supermarkets often have products from this country. It'll be two potato snacks from the D'amo Matera brand--their pomodoro piccante kind, and their mix legumi one.
D'amo, which, confusingly, is also sometimes rendered as Damo (no apostrophe) or as Da.Mo in their full business name, Da.Mo. Industria Alimentare SRL, was started by two men--Danilo D'Amario and Paolo Moliterni. Both of these guys had been heads of food companies before, and wanted to begin a new company. Their goal was to make a healthy, non-fried potato chip. They included the city where the product would be made, Matera, in their brand name. Also, the symbol of this town, an ox with some wheat in its mouth, was used as a cartoon logo for their wares. The entire D'amo/Damo line is sparse, consisting of only five products, all potato-based chips. The flavors are legume, spicy tomato, lemon, oil and salt, and protein. (The ones I had were the legume and the spicy tomato.) And that's about all I can say about the company--there's next to nothing online about its history and background. It was one of those companies that seem to want to remain mysterious and mostly anonymous, save from what they're selling. (With one weird exception to this, which I'll mention at the end.) I couldn't even find out what year the business started. The company does talk about the city of Matera a lot, on both the official website and on the product labels, so after I review the chips I'll do a paragraph or two about that.
D'amo Matera snack alle patate, mix legumi (legume) flavor: These were light yellow/whitish discs, with some visible green splotches, that had a diameter of about 4.5 cm. (about 1.75 inches). They were light, crunchy, and airy. And kind of bland tasting.
D'amo Matera snack alle patate, pomodoro piccante (spicy tomato) flavor: These were also yellowish white discs, although these had red dusting on them. Their size was the same as the previous ones. And these were once again light, crunchy, and airy. They had a recognizable tomato flavor, which was a little stronger than the legume kind. Which meant they tasted better. Still not great, but alright. The pieces were oddly inconsistent--some had more of the red dusting on them, and thus more flavor. Overall this type was kind of good. So I'd recommend the spicy tomato ones a little, but not the legume ones, since they were rather boring.
The city of Matera is located in Southern Italy, in Basilicata. Just how long people have been living there is disputed. Some posit 3000 years, others say that it's 10,000. Whichever date is accurate, it's been a long while. Matera is known for its unusual set up, being located in three deep valleys, with correspondingly high rocky mountains in between. The citizens early on started carving buildings into the rock, often resulting in cave-like dwellings and rooms. This picturesque, but odd quality has led to the city being declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1993, and it was named the European Capital of Culture in 2019. Its unique rocky streets and buildings have made it a popular setting for movies. Some that have filmed there include "The Demon" (1963),"King David" (1985), "The Passion of the Christ" (2004), "Mary" (2005), "The Omen" (2006 remake), "Wonder Woman" (2017), and "No Time to Die" (2021). This community, with a current population of just over 60,000, has produced a few famous folks. Matera-born actor Cosimo Fusco is arguably best known (at least to Americans) for playing Paolo on the "Friends" television program in 1994-95. He also appeared in the 2008 television movie "Coco Chanel," and in movies such as "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000), "The Card Player" (2004), "Angels & Demons" (2009) and the HBO Europe series "30 Coins" (2020-21). Another famous Matera-born man was St. John of Matera (1070-1139), the Benedictine monk who was canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1177. Finally, Matera produced a very successful paralympion, Enzo Masiello. Made a paraplegic at age 18 in a traffic accident, Enzo competed in both the Summer and Winter Paralympian Games. For the 1992 Summer Games he won bronze in the 5000 meters. In the 2010 Winter contest he won a silver in the 10 km. classic style sitting event (skiing), as well as a bronze medal in the 15 km. sitting (skiing) event.
I'll end on something I found weird on the official Damo/D'amo website. As I said, it was very terse on the company's history and background, but, at the same time it provided phone numbers for the two founders. Presumably they're secondary, and business-only numbers, handled by receptionists, but what if they're not? What if they just answer questions and comments from any random person? Maybe I should call and ask them when the company was founded, and such. Of course, their English might not be great, and my Italian is non-existent save for a few random words, mostly food names, so that conversation might be futile.
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