I grew up in Veneto, a rich area in the north east of Italy, and my parents who owned a restaurant once bought a fattened pig and had it killed at the back of the building one cold and foggy January morning. I can still see the thick dark red animal blood trickling into a battered plastic basin, only to find it the next day on my plate served as a delicacy. And the shrieks the terrified pig let out during its final instants still resound in my child’s ears.
I loved the chestnut piece, so evocative of a disappearing world, not just in Piemonte but all over Central and Northern Italy, wherever the chestnut was and is a life supporter. He could have been writing about my Tuscan neighbors. However, I venture a correction: it is not pane degli alberi (bread of the trees) but rather albero del pane, the chestnut as the "tree of bread," pane meaning not just bread but sustenance.
The elvers piece is great! So interesting, want to see more from Frank
I grew up in Veneto, a rich area in the north east of Italy, and my parents who owned a restaurant once bought a fattened pig and had it killed at the back of the building one cold and foggy January morning. I can still see the thick dark red animal blood trickling into a battered plastic basin, only to find it the next day on my plate served as a delicacy. And the shrieks the terrified pig let out during its final instants still resound in my child’s ears.
I loved the chestnut piece, so evocative of a disappearing world, not just in Piemonte but all over Central and Northern Italy, wherever the chestnut was and is a life supporter. He could have been writing about my Tuscan neighbors. However, I venture a correction: it is not pane degli alberi (bread of the trees) but rather albero del pane, the chestnut as the "tree of bread," pane meaning not just bread but sustenance.