Growing up in a small country town in Victoria
I remember walking through my Nonna’s vegetable garden, crushing fresh herbs in my hands and being overwhelmed by the sweet smell of basil. My Nonna sat in the yard peeling fichi d’india (prickly pears) with a sharp knife, placing them into a bucket of cold water for her grandchildren to eat. My uncles played Boules or Scorpa (Italian cards) under the nearby fig tree.
My Nonna provided us with sustainable foods. We were surrounded by everything edible, such as sweet corn, fennel, broad beans, tomatoes, peas, pumpkins, chillies, capsicum … the list goes on.
I remember the dry house. This is where salamis would hang from the ceiling and chillies and herbs were dried and crushed, to be stored for use in the winter months.
Nonna always had two pigs. For weeks on end, we would feed them acorns to flavour their fatty flesh. The family would then gather to make fennel seed salami and soap made from their fat. This was an event that could not be missed! It brought the family together.
I remember the salami would be thrown onto the hot coals of an open fire. The heat would cause the fennel seeds to pop, oozing out their natural oils and aroma. The smoke of the fire would add a mouth-watering depth of flavour.
My brother and my cousins would love to hang over the rusty wire fence, breaking off feathery fennel tops and feeding them to the sheep and their lambs.
Gathering eggs from the hens was always a treat. I remember there were over 100 hens, so eggs were plentiful. The baby chicks would be tweeting at my ankles as I went about collecting eggs. I would place my hand nervously under the warm hens to collect their eggs, never being sure of how they would react.
My Nonna treated the hens like her children. These were my Nona’s babies. She would cook their meals every morning from vegetable scraps and stale home made bread. A mix of ground seashells from ………… was added for calcium, which made the eggshells nice and hard. I think this is why my Nonna spent so much time cooking meals for the chooks - for if you give, you shall receive. She loved her chooks so much, even though their fate was always sealed with an axe. It always seemed so brutal to me, at a young age, but I really didn’t mind when it came to dinner!
An espresso with condensed milk for breakfast at the age of 8 might seem like a big no-no, but I will never forget the smell. To this day, whenever I smell freshly ground coffee, I recall looking up to my Nonna offering me my decadent treat.
It’s funny how much we seem to take for granted. To be self-sustainable is something that I find so admirable. Passion is something you cannot buy.
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