There’s a famous quote which goes something like this;
“God got it right when he made the Italians. A wonderful love of family, of honor and community all put together with food & wine!”
When I say famous, I mean that I saw it on a meme on Facebook, but it is true. The Italian’s are such a close knit community of people as a whole that you can’t help but feel part of that family when you visit their country. You even feel it in this country when you visit an Italian’s home. Have you ever been to your Italian friends home and not been fed? No. No you haven’t. It’s how we bond. It’s how we function and if you don’t eat in our house then we can’t be friends.
So imagine the beauty of it all when you’re there.
Travelling through this amazing and ancient landscape that tells a story at every twist and turn, and even when you peel back the layers of city, tear back the development and take away all of those wonderful people, you are still left with a country that lives, breathes and speaks all on it’s own. It has so many stories to tell, but then when you put those beautiful Italians in it to be the spokesperson for the land, then you have something truly remarkable.
Stories of how our grandparents used to live with 13 of them in a one bedroom house, or how they would walk 5 miles to school with one shoe between all 7 children. Stories of how Nonna used to make the bread after church on Sunday’s, and how the whole family would gather around for lunch which turned into dinner.
There are so many more stories of course but more often than not, you can find an Italian somewhere talking about his family with a rose in his cheek and a twinkle in his eye, because his family and his land are the things he loves the most, which is why we feel so privileged to be able to visit this land he speaks of.
When you visit these places you are more than likely going to run into some of the same amazing people that you already know. These same “People” for me were cousins of my Dad that he had never met at the time and they were literally almost the same people. Same mannerisms, same personality and the same ability to tell a story in the most animated fashion and have the whole room totally captivated. Regardless of how much of the story is true or not, to hold the attention of a room full of people is no easy feat and they do it without even trying! These same people of ours, do very similar things to us just on a much lesser scale, with much less stress, much less health concerns and much more of a smile on their face.
For the many Italian’s who migrated to Australia and the United States after WWII, these traditions & stories and still being taught and told today, and thank goodness they are or we would not know the pure pleasure of cibatta bread, olive oil, roasted eggplant, zeppoles, foccacia or true Italian pizza.
Unfortunately, not everyone is blessed to be part of an Italian family, and not everyone is blessed enough to have a close Italian friend, but when you do have the opportunity to sit down with someone of this heritage, take time to listen to their stories. Listen to their perspective on life, learn from it, because it’s like nothing else you will experience with any other culture. Granted there may be a few that take it for granted growing up in a country such as Australia and the United States where everything is dictated by technology, by being the newest, the shiniest, the biggest and the best, but when you travel back to your roots and sit down with family that are still living in small villages in Italy, then you truly understand why the Italian’s are the way that they are. They are happy, they are simple and the things that matter most to them, aren’t how big your iPhone is, or how many followers you have on Instagram. It’s the people around them, it’s the land that speaks to them. The people that help in the kitchen on Sunday’s or farm the fields all day. It’s the people that they break their freshly baked bread with and that my friends is the recipe for true happiness.
So the Italians do have many a recipe for delicious food, and they also have the recipe for a long and fulfilled life. Love your family above all else, feed your family and those around you, make stories with those close toyou, and retell those stories to the ones you love, over food for years to come.