Caffè!

Our kitchen, with the trusty little Moka ready to deliver the good stuff.

Filo's espresso maker.  The concept of the Kuerig cup was actually invented by an Italian company called Lavazza.

The espresso machine at Bar Anna.

Outdoor seating on the piazza.

Another favorite bar, Bar Okay.  Cappuccino and a cornetto.

Cappuccino and pastry in Paestum.

Marocchino and gelato.

Twin baristas, beautiful and professional.

The crystalline waters off Isola Licosa.

Isola Licosa with its lighthouse,

Talk about service,  caffè delivered by watercraft.

       An Italian coffee shop is a beautiful thing, with its sleek bar, its sparkling chrome machines, the ranks and files of glasses and cups neatly arrayed before the mirror at the back of the bar, the lovely wooden glass-fronted cabinets with those ravishing pastries spotlighted, always freshly made at a local pasticceria that very morning, and the baristas with their cool, efficient demeanor.  In Italy, coffee is not so much a habit as a religion. And one, I have to say, that deserves all the veneration it receives.

      In his delightful little book, A History of the World in 6 Glasses, (from which I am cribbing shamelessly here) Tom Standage makes the case that the Enlightenment, that eighteenth-century intellectual ferment which saw the end of slavish adherence to the tenets of ancient Greek science and philosophy, was fueled by good old coffee.  Much as I venerate Greek thought, I suspect he’s right.  And it should be noted that no one would have been more chagrined by that slavish adherence than the Greeks themselves.  Modernists take Aristotle to task for relying on dualistic, Aristotelean logic, but they don’t take the trouble to discover that Aristotle himself knew perfectly well that his clever little intellectual tool had severe limits.  Heck, the guy thought it was hilarious to set up a perfectly constructed syllogism and prove that a goat was a type of bird!  In any case, think of all the ideas we owe to the caffeine-powered Enlightenment, not least our system of government here in the US.

     But that was a long time coming.

     My first book started with a very simple question, namely, how did Rome, a city of over a million souls, manage to feed its population in an era without refrigeration and sterile canning and with a very primitive system of transport.  I nattered on for another 250 pages and never really mentioned the most basic reason, namely that Rome provided the one most essential element of the human diet in glorious profusion.  That nutrient is safe drinking water, something we modern Americans take for granted, and shouldn’t.  The human body can endure for two or three weeks without solid food, and some of us, sadly, probably longer, but if we go without water for more than two days, we’re in serious trouble.  I was interested to learn that sailors stranded at sea in open boats who survived to give us an account of their travails report that it was not so much hunger that tormented them, at least not after the first few days.  It was ravenous thirst.  In fact, British sailors had an unwritten rule called “The Custom of the Sea” which was understood to mean that when a stranded crew was up against it and it became obvious that without sustenance they were all going to die, it was acceptable to draw lots and kill one of their companions so that the rest might have some chance of living.  Terrible, I know, but who is to say what we ourselves might do in similar circumstances?  But the thing which really astounded me was that they also drew lots for various portions of the corpse, and the two prized portions were the liver and the brain, for the simple reason that these two organs retain the most fluid after all the others begin to wither.  Imagine the bitter irony of floating in a sea of water and thirsting to death.  As Coleridge has the Ancient Mariner declare, “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink!”  and ravenous thirst has driven some shipwrecked tars to madness, so that they began drinking sea water.  Sadly, salt is so hypertonic that it simply dehydrated them more, upon which they would repeat the cycle until they killed themselves in a raving fit.

All that by way of saying that throughout human history, various civilizations have devised ways of making impure water potable by creating staple beverages which purified it.  Thus the Egyptians and the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent were great beer drinkers, the Greeks and Romans great wine bibbers, and so forth.  Beer wort is, of course, boiled and therefore safe, and it has been experimentally proven that wine mixed with water in the proportions the Greeks and Romans prescribed kills all sorts of pathogenic microbes in brackish water, most especially typhoid and paratyphoid organisms.  The fact that alcohol in moderation has some delightful psychotropic effects as well hasn’t hurt their popularity either.  But when Islamic people, who by Koranic proscription are teetotalers, introduced distillation to the West and some bright spark figured out how to turn the process to distillation of wine and beer, the consequences were in may cases catastrophic.  Cheap gin was the bane of the poor in many cities, for example.  

     But our Muslim brothers more than compensated when they introduced coffee.  Before its introduction, most people in western Europe drank ‘small beer’, weak beer, for breakfast and lunch, since it was so much safer than municipal water supplies.  But coffee is boiled, and not only is safer, but leaves its drinker alert and energized instead of dazed and confused.  Coffee was introduced to Europe in the 1640s, and by 1674 an anonymous London poem heralded it as

…that Grave and Wholesome Liquor

That heals the Stomach, makes the Genius quicker

Relieves the Memory, revives the Sad

And cheers the Spirits without making Mad!

Actually, coffee had been known in the Islamic world for several centuries by this time.  The legend is that Arabic shepherds noticed goats eating coffee beans and becoming extremely frisky, ground up the berries and infused them in hot liquid, and were delighted by the buzz they got.  Coffee as we know it from roasted beans was evidently introduced from Yemen, and was known in Arabic as qahwah, pronounced as KAH-va, ergo our words kava and coffee. The word java, meanwhile, derives from the island of the name, where colonial powers introduced the plant in order to break the Arabic monopoly.   Coffee at first had its detractors in Islam, since it also has psychotropic effects, albeit the opposite ones in many ways from alcohol.  But eventually it was accepted as healthful and proper and became (and remains in many parts of the world) the ‘Wine of Islam’.

    Coffeehouses became popular in London in the 1660s, and a short but by no means exhaustive list of new ideas launched in these centers of egalitarian intellectual discourse would include the Glorious Revolution as well as the Restoration, the Tatler, the insurer Llloyd’s of London, Pepys’ Diary, Newton’s Principia Mathematica, and the London Stock Exchange.  Coffee was embraced just as fervently in Italy, where it fueled the intellectual ferment that resulted, at long last, in the Risorgimento and the belated unification of Italy in 1861.

    As with everything else, there are arcane unwritten rules for consumption of coffee in Italy.  Most startling for most Americans is the fact that java is probably not your beverage of choice first thing in the morning.  Italians love to let their systems wake up slowly, so a light breakfast and perhaps some fresh juice is de rigueur  Then along about 10 am, everyone heads to their favorite bar for a little jolt.  Sadly, that is one Italian custom that Sandy and I have not assimilated.  I’m usually up thirty minutes to an hour before the night owl, so I stumble to the kitchen and fire up the trusty little Moka which produces a scant four cups of espresso.  I’ll sit and peruse the news and social media on the computer while sipping my two little demitasse cups, and when I hear Miss Sandy stirring, I fire up a half cup of skimmed milk in a little stainless steel tankard so she can enjoy her caffè latte.

     But often we will head down midmorning to our favorite bar in Agropoli’s centro, Bar Anna, or to another of our favorite bars, for some professionally produced go-juice.  Understand, when you see a sign for a ‘bar’ in Italy it will be a coffee bar, although they frequently have various liquors as well for the late afternoon crowd.  Most Italians drop into their regular place, where they’re greeted by name, and stand at the bar to get their caffeine fix.  It will cost about a buck and a half, maybe two and a half if you sit.  And if you order a caffè, you will automatically get a shot of espresso, unless the barista recognizes that suspicious touristy look, in which case you’ll get a tentative, “Caffè espresso?”  Also appropriate at this time is a good cappuccino, a shot of espresso mixed with warm milk with skim-milk froth on top, the perfect way to start a work day, according to many Italians.  And, if you insist as does my beloved on ordering one in the afternoon, knock yourself out, but don’t be surprised if the barista shudders on hearing the order, because any form of coffee with milk after noon is JUST NOT RIGHT!!!  At Bar Anna we sit out at the tables under the umbrellas on the Piazza Vittorio Veneto, drink our coffee, take advantage of municipal wi-fi, watch the passing parade, noodle on the computer, grab a pastry or gelato, and just pure lolligag.  Which you can easily do, because, just as at any good Italian restaurant, you will never, ever be rushed.  You can sit there the whole day and never once be asked, as in American establishments, “Is there anything else?” by which is meant, “Beat it, old geezer, I want my tip.”  What a remarkably civilized way to enjoy your coffee!

     More signs of civilized life:  Your caffè will typically be served in a pretty ceramic cup with a cute little spoon and a packet of sugar as well as a glass of water, unless the place is for barbarians.  Italians love their espresso black as sin and sweet as young love, and it is a joy to watch them carefully pour in the sugar, then slowly, carefully stir and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved, and then throw the whole cup back like a shot of whisky in a bad western.  I’m telling you, there is real flair and panache there!  Meanwhile, I am so impatient that I always seem to knock mine back too early, and therefore suffer the humiliation of residual sugar goo on the bottom of the cup.  So I’ve decided to make a virtue of necessity and have adopted the habit of mixing a bit of water from the glass in the espresso cup and swirling it about a bit before a second knock-back so I can achieve the full caffeine-sucrose rush.

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, there are numerous variations on the basic espresso and cappuccino duo.  Instead of a cappuccino, you might care for a macchiato, a good shot of espresso with a small dollop of whole milk in the center.  Or perhaps you’ll want your caffè ‘ben caldo', ‘really hot’.  Since Italians don’t sip their espressos, they don’t want a scalding cup, but if you prefer to sip, the barista can set you up with an ‘extra-hot’.  Or just for variety, you might want a marochino, a cappuccino sprinkled with cocoa powder.  There’s even caffè d’orzo, not really coffee at all, but a substitute which poor Italians made from dark roasted barley during the world wars because coffee was unavailable.  It seems some of them actually became inured to the taste!  For the love of God, please don’t order an Americano thinking you’ll get a good cup of American coffee.  What you’ll get is a shot of espresso mixed with a ridiculous amount of hot water, a truly disgusting concoction which, I suppose, gives you some notion of how Italians regard American coffee.

    But if perchance you imbibe this foul abomination, do not despair.  What you need to remove the horrid aftertaste is a caffè corretto, a shot of espresso with a shot of booze on top.  Unless you specify, the liquor will be grappa, fiery Italian brandy.  But you can also specify ‘con Sambuca', Sambuca being a liqueur flavored with anise and elderflowers, or ‘con Cognac’.  These are particularly popular with commuters in the late afternoon, and that reminds us that Italians love a good shot of java along about 5 pm.  In fact, many of the train stations here have little coffee kiosks right out near the boarding platforms, and you’ll often see a harried commuter rush up to the bar, order a quick espresso, throw it back, and rush off to board his espresso.  Yep, the espresso train lent its name to the typical little cup of Italian coffee.  Both are going to have you speeding along.  But please, whatever you do, don’t call it an “EK-spresso’ as many Americans are wont to do.  Good coffee deserves more respect than that.

    My all-time favorite coffee experience occurred when our friend Franco Castelnuovo took us and Fernando by boat to see the beautiful island of Licosa, about 15 miles south of Agropoli.  As we motored down, Franco slowed the boat to a crawl to show me the crystal-clear view of the bottom of the sea and then pointed to the depth-finder radar:  12 meters!  The waters and beaches of this areas are famous all over Europe for their clarity and beauty.  We anchored about 30 yards from the island (the rocks were too difficult to navigate inshore), swam to shore, and explored the footprints of a Roman villa, quite a treat.  Franco’s lovely wife Adriana Zammarrelli had remained on the boat with Sandy to tend the boat.  As the three of us gents were swimming back to the boat we noticed a small craft driven by a handsome young fellow approaching the boat.  When we arrived, he was just serving the ladies iced coffee and soon produced from a small espresso machine caffè for the explorers as well.  Great coffee in one the the world’s most evocative places!

     I read recently that Starbucks intends to open its first concession in Italy in the northern city of Milano some time in early 2017.  Ironic, since Danny Schulz, founder of the chain, drew his inspiration for what was at the time a radical new way of serving coffee from a trip he took to Italy.  Now all the pundits are trying to predict whether an American coffee shop can survive in the land that worships coffee.  Stranger things have happened, perhaps; McDonald’s is eking out an existence in the country which venerates good food.  How do you explain that?  But, for what it’s worth, my prediction is that the venture will not end happily.  The first time a Starbucks barista serves coffee in a paper cup, the lot of them will be tarred and feathered and flogged out of Lombardy and the establishment will be torched.  And justifiably so; some things are so sacred, you mess with them at your peril.

     

A temple to the goddess Caffeina in Florence.

First Day in Agropoli

Woke this morning from a restful sleep at 9 am.  Understand, I’m usually up when we’re here by 6:30 at the latest.  Sandy woke shortly thereafter.  Tired, tired, tired, but what a wonderful rest.  I stumbled to the kitchen and almost had heart failure when the gas stove wouldn’t fire up so I could get the Moka rolling to produce some of the magic elixir.  But finally through the fog I remembered the cut-off valve under the counter and all was well.  Almost exactly when I began to hear that wonderful burbling sound which means the Moka is almost finished I saw Sandy stumble from the bed and so fired up some milk for her caffè latte as well.  We luxuriated as we sipped our morning brew on the terrazza, enjoying a beautiful azure sky and that ravishing mountain breeze which we love so well. Breakfast for me was a no-brainer, leftover pizza.  Just didn’t have an egg to fry to put on top and make it the perfect breakfast, which Fabio tells me is called a ‘Bismark’ here.

The view from the driveway

The beautiful Villa Astone.  Our apartment is on the bottom right.

At eleven Fernando showed up to take us to the Centro and serve as our interlocutor in the great matter of the wi-fi.  I should explain that wi-fi in Italy is a very big deal, or rather the difficulty of obtaining it in any dependable form.  Almost all routers here are connected to phone lines which are still not fiber-optic and are intermittent at best.  But last year Fernando introduced us to a nifty little portable modem which basically creates a hot spot that covers a circle of about 20’ in diameter.  Not perfect, but so much better than what we had before!  Plus, we can take it on adventures and hop on-line when we’re sitting in a small cafe in some remote hill town.  And, to reiterate earlier comments, having access to reliable wi-fi is absolutely essential to making a long stay like this in a foreign country possible.  Unless, of course, you’re prepared to break all ties with your home country and move home, bank accounts, utilities, and social contacts to your new one.  Which we definitely are not.  We had to wait in line for 20 minutes while a saintly store clerk in the TIM store patiently explained to an elderly Nonna what her options were for her tablet.  And never showed the slightest sign of frustration as a long queue built up behind us.  That’s the best of Italy, friends.  As one whose mom suffered from Alzheimer’s but was able to function independently for far longer than she should have, all thanks to the patience and kindness of neighbors, friends and her saintly sister, that sort of thing touches my heart.

Fernando discovered that the SIM card we purchased last year is expired but scoped out the best deal for us on a new one, three months and 20 GB for only 24E, so we are happy campers.  Afterwards we strolled on up the Via Gaspari and around the corner to Bar Anna where we all got coffee and Sandy a cornetto, the wonderful local form of croissant.  We sat out on the piazza and just basked in the weather and the relaxed atmosphere.  Earlier, when Fernando had parked in the municipal lot we were amazed at all the vacant places on a Saturday morning.  Fernando’s response, “Yesterday it was still August in Agropoli, today it’s September.”  Translation:  the tourists are gone and life will be a lot calmer around here for the next 10 months.

Our favorite stop mid-morning, Bar Anna

And here's why:  delicious pastries and gelato, great coffee, all out on the piazza.

As we idled away, Fernando spotted our pal Nunzio Mastrolia on his way to the bookstore across the piazza and trotted over to speak to him. After a quick visit to the store (Nunzio and his wife Teresa Sanna are the brains behind our Italian publishing house) Nunzio came over for hugs and some catching up, then off he went to book train tickets to Rome.  We strolled over to the Banco di Napoli Bancomat and all three got some cash and then Fernando took us by a cute little hole-in-the-wall paneficio for a beautiful loaf of bread and by a new mozzarella shop where they also sell all sorts of artisinal foods.  We scored a half-kilo of the little ‘mouthful’ mozzarelle, bocconcini, then puttered on home. Fernando said his good-byes and Sandy and I sat out on the terrace to enjoy our exquisite little bocconcini and bread doused with some of Rolando’s luscious olive oil.  If there’s a more luxurious lunch, I can’t imagine what it would be.

Delicious fresh-baked pane

The Oro Bianco, a new shop for artisinal foods

A selection of Cilentan cheeses

Sandy's happy:  1/2 kilo of bocconcini.

A huge, aged scamorza

The afternoon was devoted to life on the internet, a quick nap and a trip to the Maxxi Futura Ipermercato for basic groceries.  It’s odd how relaxing and enjoyable taking care of the basics can be after the stress and tension of the trip.

Fresh seafood at the Maxxi Futura supermarket

A perfect lunch:  fresh bread and bocconcini with Rolando's nectar of the gods.

 And then home for a quiet dinner and more rest. Not the most exciting day, but just what tired bodies and sprits needed.

Arrival

     Saturday morning, September 2, Agropoli (SA) Italia.  Lots more gossip to record.  First off, all is well.  But it was a bit of a haul to reach this point.

     Three days ago, back in Durham, we were making last-minute preparations and trying to stay calm before we set out for two months in this gorgeous little seaside town in southern Italy,  I was doing some rather unenthusiastic research on cheese and decided to check email.  And there was a message from my production editor at Brill reporting that the typesetting on the wine book was complete and the pdf file was attached.  And it looks beautiful!  Well, no way to fake calmness after that.  Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but sleep has been at a premium since then.

     Our journey here was about as glitch-free as we could reasonably hope, just exhausting for two of, shall we say, advanced years, especially ones not well rested to begin with.  Our dear friends Anne and John drove us to the airport early Thursday afternoon  I explained how antsy we were and how infuriating it is, at a time when old bodies need to recharge, to spend half the night fixated on some remote potential problem with the trip.  Anne and John are very experienced and adventurous travelers—Anne recently broke a metatarsal hiking on Mt. Rainier—and Anne quickly interjected, “Xanax, Dave!  Get your doctor to prescribe a few Xanax and enjoy the experience again!”  What a putz, I thought I was the only geezer who experienced travel anxiety, but of course it’s a ‘thing’, especially among people of our age.  Thanks for the tip, Anne, once again you’re my hero.

Waiting in a long queue at JFK

    Our flight from RDU to JFK was delayed (what a shock!), but only for an hour, and meantime there was another flight rerouted to our original gate which was scheduled to fly to La Guardia, and it seems there was such a heavy downpour in that part of Queens that all landings and departures had been suspended, so those poor folks were scrambling.  But not at JFK!  We had two-hour layovers in New York and Nice, the perfect amount in my opinion, so no problems there, and we made the connection fine.  We sat in the tarmac queue for 45 minutes in New York waiting our turn to taxi—we were number 35 in line, they were so backed up, and I don’t know whether to attribute that to the rain or the usual inefficiency at JFK.  But, again, we had a nice cushion in the schedule, so no worries.  The flight over was short, only 6 1/2 hours, but bumpy.  Not frighteningly so, unless you were obsessed with that recent news item about the flight to London which had to be diverted to Ireland because 12 people were injured when the plane had two sudden and dramatic drops in altitude while NOT flying through a storm.  No names mentioned.  But enough to make sleep almost impossible.  You’ve doubtless had the experience when you’re a passenger in the car and just as you’re drifting into that silver fog right before sleep, your spouse hits a pothole.  Again, and again, and again….  So we bumped and thumped our way across the clear skies of the Atlantic.  Finally the captain dispensed with the niceties and just announced, “Seat belts!”

Flying over France

The Côte d'Azur

The beautiful city of Nice

Terminal at Nice

    Nice was nice (or should that be Nice was nees?), at least what we could see from the air and from the dramatic, glass-enclosed terminal of the airport.  Easy to see why the Côte d’Azur is so popular as a vacation spot.  But no nicer than our beaches here.  That’s a strictly unbiased opinion, you understand.  But as we reached passport control we were alarmed to see the whole room crammed with people, easily 500 or so, and no movement!  Nor any announcement to let us know why.  Nor do we yet.  But eventually the maze of queues was set up and things began to move.  Perhaps a terrorist threat?  After recent sad history you can certainly understand why people in Nice would be especially vigilant.  

Ouch!  Trying to go through passport control

     The biggest hassle here was the security, where both our carry-ons were targeted for inspection.  Obviously we fit the profile of suspicious terroristic sorts.  The women who inspected Sandy’s bags were as nice as they could be, but painfully slow and thorough:  you have two plastic bags of toiletries instead of one!  You monster!  Your saline bottle is 350 ml!  That’s 50 ml over the limit!  Madame, have you no shame?  And meantime, the clock was ticking and Dave was feeling the dread.  But after some 15 minutes, they let the ‘terrorists’ escape, and the gate was practically a stone’s throw away, so we were fine.  The hop from Nice to Rome was smooth and beautiful, but at this point we knew we were almost home free, relaxed, and both nodded off until we approached Fiumicino.  In the terminal, I ducked into the toilet before we tackled baggage claim, and by the time I returned, there was Sandy with both bags!  I was in total shock, it couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes from the time we deplaned till we were off to the car rental!  And this in Italy!

In an earlier blog I claimed that I was through with Hertz in Italy, but we have previously had a good experience with Hertz Rome, and Sandy wangled an extremely good price, important for retired teachers who are renting for two whole months.  The counter was mobbed at the time—2 pm local time—but there was a take-a-number system and places to sit and the young lady who finalized our paperwork could not have been kinder or more efficient.  And we have our car of choice, a new Fiat Panda, the little hatchback which is the perfect size for luggage and such, fun to drive, even on tortuous mountain roads, and with a hatchback that makes grocery shopping and such very convenient.  She’s a cute little royal blue beauty whom we have dubbed Azura in honor of our first ersatz visit to the ‘Azure Coast’ and of her color.

Our cute little Panda, Azura, in our driveway

      The drive south on the A1 had its usual frivolity, but nothing too extreme.  One small misstep when I failed to catch the exit for the A30 around the eastern side of Vesuvius in order to avoid Naples.  But we exited, paid the toll, found a local street in Caserta and asked directions of a kind gas station attendant, and were back on the correct route in 10 minutes, so no major damage.  And Dave only lost three years of life driving this Italian road.  The route through Naples is 20 years minimum.  Plus no hair instead of increasingly sparse gray hair.

     The drive above Salerno was a breeze, and we exited at Battipaglia onto the SS18, and immediately encountered stop-and-roll.  Yeesh!  Thirty-five miles of bumper to bumper when we’re both exhausted?  Finally the traffic began to thin a bit, and by the time we approached Agropoli we were zipping along at 45 mph on this major highway.  The exit at Agropoli Sud indicated that the road collapse 5 km further down 18 has still not been repaired after a mere  six years, no surprise there but considerable disgust.  Basically Camorra, which controls road construction in this area, deliberately built a defective stretch of road which, inevitably, collapsed, and now various levels of Italian government are into their sixth year of wrangling over who should pay what for the repair.  Meanwhile, the hidden cost in lost time and productivity and tourism is bound to be in the hundreds of millions of euros.  In an area which so desperately needs every possible euro it can eke out.

     But that was a momentary downer.  Around the roundabout in Madonna del Carmine we go, out of the little frazione and the short if hairy short cut under the rail line, up the Via Fuonti and up, up, up the ridge and into the driveway, and there are all our friends waiting with hugs and laughter and kiss-kiss and much joyful banter, and, Whew!  We made it!

     Some changes.  We now have neighbors downstairs in the other apartment, Federico, a childhood friend of Fabio, and his lovely wife Mini, who is of Indian extraction and speaks beautiful English.  Rolando is still his same gentle, quiet, dignified, wonderful self, Filomena still pure heart but a bit drawn.  It seems she had a serious bout with stomach problems this winter and is still recovering.  Fernando is…Fernando.  What can I say, except that he is one of the finest gentlemen I’ve ever known and he is my brother.  Fabio looks hale and happily married and, as always, eager to help us in any way he can. 

The apartment is just as cool and inviting as ever and Filo has supplied us with all sorts of basics and luxuries, not least homemade wine, olive oil and vinegar.  A quick wash and change and we’re off with Fernando to Pizzeria Galleone at the Port for what has become a tradition:  first-night victory pizza.  Absolutely delicious.  Even more delicious, sharing news and gossip with our beloved friend.

Fernando went for Napolitano....

And Sandy for Caprese

And so, at 11:30 pm, back to our little apartment, which now feels so much like home that we both quickly fall into ten hours of the most blissful, uninterrupted sleep we have had in weeks.  The Romans, those masters of legalese, believed that the gods sent signs and omens to us all the time, but that you could, if you knew how to work the system, circumvent the potential outcome simply by refusing to acknowledge the sign!  Or, if it was a positive one, you could quickly claim it as your own before someone else did.  Omen accipio, caro Dio!  Omen accipio!

Transitions

Lungomare, the beach section of Agropoli.

Il Porto, Agropoli's beautiful port.

The gateway to our second home.

Capo Palinuro, one of the dozens of gorgeous little towns in the Cilento, where you can have mountains and beach at the same time.

The fishing fleet means incredible seafood.

So much history here.  This is the Aragonese fort of the Medieval town of Capaccio.

The Temple of Athena/Ceres at Paestum, a World Heritage site.

Artisinal foods, including the queen of cheeses, mozzarella di bufala.

Frutta di mare.

Proposed book jacket.

I'm going where the sun keeps shining

Through the pouring rain

Going where the weather suits my clothes

Banking off of the northeast winds

Sailing on a summer breeze

And skipping over the ocean like a stone

     This blog is going to be a bit gossipy, I fear, but we’ve been receiving lots of questions about our travel plans from Facebook and Blogspot friends, so it seems an apt time for an update.  That and a promise of more substantive (unless I’m flattering myself) posts in the near future.  Lately I’ve been humming Nillson’s little ditty and grinning like a fool.  Nine more days until Sandy and I travel to our beloved Agropoli, this time for two blessed months.

       Lots of changes to report.  First in the personal sphere.  I reached the ripe old age of 66 last December and simultaneously found out that a long-term dream would indeed be possible, namely, to be in Italy during the vintage and olive harvest.  I have enjoyed my teaching career immensely the last few years, despite an oppressive political atmosphere in North Carolina and a complete lack of economic incentives.  But, with a few notable and unnamed exceptions, I’ve had some of the kindest, most engaging students I’ve had in 43 years in the classroom.  On the other hand, the only way I could make my dream feasible financially was to retire and then come back Spring semester, either at my old gig if they’ll have me, or perhaps as a gypsy at a local university.  We’re both in remarkably good physical condition, but at our age, every day of good health is a gift, so I’ve decided to make the change while the Fates are still kind. 

     Now, my beloved is much younger than I, as she delights in reminding me, so retirement now is for her a financial sacrifice (no Social Security), but last school year was difficult for her, and it was beginning to adversely affect her health.  Plus, there was that prospect of two months in Italy.  I’m delighted to say my best friend and talented photographer has also retired and will be tagging along.  We leave September 1, fly to JFK, thence to Nice and to Rome, and from Rome we’ll go by train to our beloved Agropoli.

     Yet again, this good fortune is all due to our wonderful friends, especially Rolando and Filomena Astone, in whose villa apartment we will live, and dear Fernando La Greca, who is handling the logistics of cars, etc.  We have stayed in this beautiful apartment for six summers now, so it’s very much like coming back to a second home.  Fabio Astone, son of our hosts, informs us via Fernando that the vintage will start on or about September 10, so we’ve planned to arrive a bit early in case the harvest is early this year and to provide a bit of time to settle in.  The olive harvest will probably begin sometime in late October.  A bit of background:  the Astones live on a hobby farm (they’re both retired) about a mile west of the seaside resort of Agropoli, located at the entrance to a wild and beautiful part of southern Italy called the Cilento.  I would estimate the agricultural part of the complex is about 30 acres.  This includes roughly 5 acres of vines, distributed in several plots around the farm to take advantage of particular aspects.  There Rolando grows some of the noblest Italian varietals, most prominently Nebbiolo and Barbera, which he brought south with him from Piemonte when the family moved here from Torino.  There are also two olive orchards, perhaps 25 trees or so, from which the Astones make incredible olive oil.  Our hope is that we will be allowed to ‘help’ in some way with the grape harvest and the vintage (Rolando has a small winery in the cellar next to our apartment), as well as the olive harvest and oil production.

     This is also a professional trip.  Sandy and I are not the type to sit in recliners and watch the soaps in retirement.  There’s a commercial for a financial planning company directed at people planning for retirement.  The tagline is something like, “What do you want to do with the second half of your life?”  Among the many reasons I feel so blessed in my life is the fact that I’m already doing what I want.  I just want to shift priorities a bit.  Heretofore I’ve been a full-time teacher and part-time archaeologist and writer, and now I’d like to flip that scheme.  Sandy, I suspect, feels very much the same way, but her second passion is photography.  Many of you are aware that our original trip to Agropoli was during my research for a book on ancient Roman wine.  This part of Italy is incredibly rich in the archaeology of ancient foodways.  But after the first summer we were so besotted with the Cilento that since then it’s hard to separate professional from personal motivation.  In any case, the book is in the final stages of its production.  At the beginning of the summer I submitted illustrations.  The text is being typeset as I write this and the galleys are promised to me by September 8.  Meanwhile, I have finalized and submitted a table of contents and have devised that most important of research tools in an academic book, a thorough index, not the most entertaining of enterprises as you can imagine, but made immeasurably less tedious by the new spreadsheets.  Thus, sometime after we arrive in Agropoli, galleys will be sent to me by email from Leiden, where my publisher, Brill Academic, is located, and I will do a final proofing and also finalize the page numbers for the index.  Happily, the galleys will be searchable using Acrobat, so the latter process should be fairly painless.  (Famous last words?) Last week we selected a cover.  Thus, after I approve the final proof and submit the index, it’s on to printing.  I have a dream, probably optimistic, that the book will be released while we’re in Italy so that we can celebrate its parturition with the wonderful people who have been such an integral part of its gestation.  Forgive the bad metaphor.

     This will be a special summer in my writing career in other ways as well.  For one thing, I am now a profitable business enterprise and we will be incorporated as a limited liability corporation.  Understand, my profit at this point (the first book was published in 2006) is a whopping $145.  But the people at Brill seem enthusiastic about the commercial prospects for the wine book and have promised a modest advance, plus the tax advantages of being a ‘legitimate’ professional author are enormous, at least for people of our limited means.  That will be especially important since we will be working on a new book this summer on mozzarella di bufala, that exquisite little pillow of lactic love for which the area north of Agropoli is famous.  Two wonderful young friends of ours, Nunzio Mastrolia and Teresa Sanna, have started a new publishing company and one of the series they plan will be little monographs on Italian artisanal foods to be marketed to (would you believe?) the Chinese!  Nunzio is an expert on emerging economies and Teresa on Mediterranean foodways, and it seems the Chinese middle class are fascinated by Italian foods.  Now, obviously, the idea of an American presuming to be an expert on Italian food is pretty ludicrous, but Nunzio read a blog I did on mozzarella di bufala and liked it, and Sandy is an talented photographer and this is a subject which lends itself to illustration.  Plus I write in English, the second language of the Chinese middle class, of which there are some 150 to 250 million in that enormous country.  So Dave and Sandy will spend many wonderful hours this Fall exploring local buffalo herds, dairying operations and cheesemaking.  Hope you’ll come along!

     Additionally, lurking somewhere in the backs of our minds is a book called Our Beloved Cilento, a sort of love offering to this area we have come to adore, lavishly illustrated with Sandy’s incredible pictures, with a bit of background text from Dave.  Could there possibly be a market for it in the US or western Europe?  Surely, sooner or later, more adventurous travelers are bound to discover this hidden gem of a region, and we would dearly love to be a part of that discovery.

     Finally, we will have a personal agenda this summer.  So enamored are we of this part of Italy that we have seriously considered part-time retirement here.  There is too much to recommend it to survey the pluses here—refer to previous blogs—but a short list would include the weather, the food, the purchasing power of the good old U.S dollar, and most importantly the people and lifestyle.  But there is much to consider as well before taking a precipitate step.  First, there are potential health issues.  No, not the ones you’re probably thinking of.  Access to health-care professionals here is good, and it’s cheap or free.  Sorry to preach, but the latest figures were recently released that showed Italy has the fifth-highest life expectancy in the world, while the U.S. is proud number 40, barely ahead of that paragon of medical innovation, Cuba.  Meanwhile, Italy spends less than 9% of GDP on medical care, while we spend six times more than the average of all other developed countries.  So put aside your prejudices about Italian health care.  But, on the other hand, the logistics of daily life in Italy are more difficult than here, there is no doubt of that, and as mobility declines, the creature comforts of the U.S. look more and more attractive.  Plus there are such minor things as central heat and air, wi-fi that works, infrastructure that functions properly, drivers who aren’t barking crazy, such things as that.  This will be our longest stay ever in Italy by three weeks, and we have decided to use the time as a sort of test of our resolve to make a more permanent move.

     Should be an eventful two months!

The Lonely Life of an Italian Buffalo Herder

Buffaloes at Vannulo, a large, modern dairy farm and mozzarellaria in the Paestum Plain

The little town of Eboli near where Cosimo lived, with the Plain and the sea in the background

The ladies staying cool

Buffaloes look intimidating, but they have wonderful, gentle dispositions

Goof place for a buffalo, a tonzo, 'wallow'

Making the genuine article at Caseificio Polito

Mozzarrella di bufala and scamorzza affumicata

Today, most buffalo herds in Italy are along the coastal regions in large, scientifically managed dairy farms. Occasionally one still sees a few buffaloes on a family farm out in the hinterlands, but that is far from the norm. But in earlier days, back when the herds were restricted to marshy environments and required constant attention, the life of a buffalo herder was a lonely, demanding existence. We are lucky to have the testimony of one such herdsman, Cosimo Montefusco, who was born in 1904 in the hinterlands of the Paestum Plain and came of age when the region was still blighted by poverty, malaria, and the old feudal system of mezzadria, sharecropping. The following comes from an interview published in 1953 in the journal Rabatana, published in the town of Tricarico in the Matera region of Basilicata.



“I was born at Eboli commune, but more precisely at Aversana, where there is a farm complex where I worked and which is called Battaglio. One estate belonged to Don Vincenzo Cuozzo, another to Don Gennaro Pierro, But the buffaloes that I tended belonged to Don Alberto Mattassini, and I lived on his estate, over there where there was a well fed by a windmill, and close to another estate owned by a certain Salvatore Giardelli, who is not from these parts.

“My father died in 1940 and left, besides me, my mother, who was about 48 or 49 I think,[1] a brother, a bit older than 31, another brother, 33, another about 40, and me, aged 36. We all worked for Don Alberto. But my oldest brother had to go on pension. When they [the Allies] were disembarking,[2] the Germans were passing near our house, and a ship from way down in the marina commenced firing, and instead of catching the Germans by surprise, they hit our cottage and we wanted to run away outside and as my brother Vincenzo was going down the stairs a piece of shrapnel fell struck his arm and mutilated his hand. He lost his left hand and arm above the elbow.

“None of us brothers had gone to school, and I can’t even sign my name. If we had wanted to go to ‘little boys’ school, how would Mama have been able to work alone and pay the boss? From the age of 5 or 6 I worked around buffaloes. First I worked in the plot where we grew tomatoes. That was part of the women’s crop, about a tomolo, maybe one and a half tomolos.[3] I go to Eboli once a year when my name-saint, Santo Cosimo, has his feast day, and otherwise occasionally on Sunday to visit my uncle, my mother’s brother, who also farmed under the mezzadria. But I’ve never been to Salerno or Naples. As I’ve never been to Salerno, how could I have gone to Naples?[4] I’ve only been to Battipaglia and to Eboli several times for the cinema, and I’ve seen war movies and love movies, but if someone should ask me, ‘What movies have you seen? What was the title?’ I’d have to say I don’t know because I don’t know how to read. But a couple of times I’ve started to go. I like to go because I see when people die and I like it. And when they fight, I should add. I can’t really tell you about it because my brain is like a sieve.

The first theater at Eboli was built not long after the bombardment and was called Supercinema and was built by Pezzullo, the owner of the big mill and bakery. Then Cosimo Negro, who held the office of tax assessor and had a big palazzo, built another one that was called Cinema Italia. Sometimes this Negro offered two films for a single ticket. The Supercinema, which had a changing room, sometimes brought in live shows and then Negro, whose place didn’t have a changing room, reduced the price of a ticket to draw people away from the Supercinema, and the prices would go from 100 lire to 60 to 50 to 30, and would sometimes wind up at 5 lire per ticket, and that included a coffee and a gelato! The mamas would bring all their kids down to the piazza, and if they reduced the ticket price enough the mamas would buy tickets for the whole lot, more for the food than the movie, and the crowds became so big that they needed the carabineri to regulate the crowds going in. I went to the cinema for the first time three years ago.

“Next the two cinemas made an arrangement and exchanged films, and every film was repeated for two days at one, then for two days at the other, and I suppose they pooled the gate and divided the profits.”

Cosimo was shown by the interviewer a copy of Tempo news magazine of September 10 that had on the cover a photo of the artist, Carlo Levi and of the young actress Balducci.[5] He was asked what might be the palette that Levi held in his hand, covered with paints. “It could be the flesh of fruits,” he responded. Leafing through the magazine, he placed his finger on a photo of Coppi[6] that he recognized. But he didn’t know why, nor did he know the function of the razorblade Gillette Blue that he saw in an advertisement. “Look,” said the interviewer, “here is Marconi. Do you know what he did? He invented the radio.” Cosimo knew what a radio was, but he had never had one. “My uncle at Eboli has one,” he said, “and it plays songs.”

He was asked what day it was. “Today is September 3, 1953.”

“How do you know that?”

Cosimo didn’t answer for a while, and then said calmly, “It’s other people’s job to know that sort of thing.”

He knows the days of the week and months of the year, and he knows how to add one by one by counting on his fingers, but he can’t do multiplication or division. But clearly, he is not stupid; when the concept of multiplication is explained and he is asked how much is 7 X 3, he counts on his fingers 7 plus 7 and derives 14 and then counts 14 and 7 and derives 21.

“If there is a holiday when there is not so much labor, sometimes I go [to town] and sometimes no. One Sunday yes, and another, no. But after the harvest is complete, and then the harvest of the tomatoes, if there is only the tending of the animals to see to, in September and October, then I go.”

“I get up usually around 4 am, sometimes 4:30 or even 5. First I go to take the calves to the mothers so that I can milk them. I find the calves at the gate, I put them under the udders and let them have some milk, and then remove them. When we call them to the milking, the moms and calves come from their pens, and it takes about an hour and a half or sometimes two to milk them all. You can’t even get near to the amount of milk that a buffalo gives [with a cow]. Each one can give a bucket (10 liters), sometimes half that, depending on how they’ve been feeding and whether they’ve recently calved. Afterwards we put the calves back in a closed pen and I go with the mothers to another field. I pasture them till about noon and then I bring them to the water where there are the tonzi [wallows].”

"The buffaloes are first ‘calves’, up until three or four months while they are suckling, then up to one year we call them ‘weaners’, which is to say that they no longer suckle, then from one year to two they are ‘yearlings’, those who have completed their first year. It’s at this age that the females are first ‘covered’ and at 2 1/2 or 3 years they calve for the first time and become ‘bufale’. They are pregnant for 10 months before birthing. Sometimes the fetus doesn’t ‘’take’ and they won’t stay pregnant and they abort. ‘Hunter’ buffaloes are the old ones that no longer give much milk and we call them that because the owner hunts them to take to sell to the butcher.”

While Cosimo was speaking, one buffalo wandered out of the field and into the road. Cosimo ran and called to her in a sing-song voice, “Chi commanda!” [She who commands]. It is the name of the buffalo, or rather the first part, which is followed by a so-called ‘’a vatuta’ which Cosimo explains is a nickname or cognomen. “Chi Commanda no suda’, ‘she who commands doesn’t sweat’.

Cosimo explains, “’Chi commanda’ is an example of the name and ‘non suda’ is a description because she doesn’t have to toil like me.”

“The buffaloes drink and they run down into the water and refresh themselves, and that takes an hour. Meanwhile, I eat my bread and tomato and drink my ‘tenants’ water’ that I carry with me, and if I run out, I just don’t drink anymore until evening. There is water, but it’s far away and it takes a quarter hour to get there on a bicycle, but I can’t leave the buffaloes, who could get out into the tomato patch and do all kinds of damage and even wander into other people’s fields and then the owner would come up to me and want to know why. When the buffaloes have empty stomachs, we say they ‘allucano’ ‘(bellow’). Hey, when we humans have empty stomachs, don’t we go to find somewhere where they sell food? It’s the same with them; they seek out the good pasturage and then they stop.

“I’m the buffalo herder who helps the boss. But we never have made a proper contract with stipulations. I started tending pigs at 13 and one day my boss said, ‘Come on over for a few days,’ and after that I just stayed. I take the buffaloes out one gate at 4:30 am to the fields and head toward the sun and toward the mountains of this area: Montecorvino, Altavilla, Albanella. I know them by name, but I’ve never been there, the same as with Mt. Giffoni.

“Next I take them to the enclosed field where there is by this time very little pasturage because they have eaten it before, and I go over to the farmhouse where I wash out the milk cans, and I milk any cows that need milking, and I prepare the buggy for Don Alberto so he can travel to Battipaglia. After I’ve done all my chores, I go on home to our cottage, which is a kilometer away from the farmhouse.

“The house also belongs to Don Alberto, and we rent it. It has two rooms and a kitchen and we are five, including mama. There is a well for water. We eat maccheroni, pasta fagioli (pasta with green beans), pasta with potatoes, vegetable soups, wine on Sundays, never meat, or only on a feast day or when a buffalo dies. My mother even has to buy mozzarella di bufala from a cheese shop! We don’t use butter, but we have ricotta when there’s a feast day. We just don’t have much in the way of milk products. I drink milk every now and then.

“In the evening sometimes we play a game called pazzilla, which is a kind of hide and seek. All the young people from the surrounding estates get together and tell stories about the deeds of the ancient folks, but I don’t know any, or we tell what happened at a movie we’ve seen.

“When I’m out guarding the buffaloes, I think to myself about all the things happening which are passing me by. A car passes, and I think, ‘That guy is out driving a car, and here I am slaving away and guarding buffaloes.’ Other people think nothing of going to a bar, drinking orange soda, coffee, such things, and of going to the movies every evening. They can do that, but I can’t. I can have a gelato, when the Vespa that sells gelato passes by. Several years ago he started selling gelato from his scooter out in the countryside.”

Cosimo is asked if he is a Catholic. “No,” he answers.

“What, you don’t believe in Jesus Christ?”

“Oh, yes! I don’t know anything, I was thinking of another word when you said the word ‘Catholic’. But do I go to Mass? No, I can’t go. I believe in Jesus Christ, more when somebody dies, and when somebody has a disease, they all speak about Jesus Christ and say, ‘Jesus Christ, please allow me to recover!’ The things of God [the catechism] I learned at my house, but I’ve forgotten them.

“How can I think about religious things? But I believe. Who created the airplane? He created it. When they made the disembarkation, and at first and even later there were the airplanes that dropped the bombs, there was the war, and the war was not created by Jesus Christ. The war was made by people who were not saved, who couldn’t agree, but the war could have been sent by Jesus Christ.

“The plow for plowing --who made that? The craftsmen, like those at Eboli and Battipaglia. Sure there are craftsmen who don't know how, definitely those who made the bombs that smashed everything, the land and the farmhouses, and Christians died.

“I commend my soul to Jesus Christ to take care of me—me and my whole family. And then I would like to have lots of things. For example, I would like to hoe more, to end all this toil and to stop tending the buffaloes, to start work at 7 am, or even at 5 am, to raise my hand and be free. But here at this job, I’m always seeing to the buffaloes. Here, in order to have food, I go to call the buffaloes, I run, I scurry around. And in the evening I would like to go to town, even if I didn’t have a single dollar and just wanted to see the town. But it’s not practical, not possible. To Battipaglia it’s a long way, 12 kilometers, and even if I went in the evening, even on a bicycle, I’d have to work the next day, I’d have to have time to eat, and I’d have to cycle both ways, and then I’d be tired already.

“A field worker, which is what I want to be, when it’s Saturday evening, he quits his work and gets his weekly wages and takes them back to the house. But I tend the buffaloes every day for an entire month, night and day, out in the countryside, for 6,000 lire, 50 kilograms of wheat, and 3 quintals of hard cheese per year. That comes to 15,000 lire total, plus 10 kilograms of olive oil per year. And I put up with this mess, they pay me like some kid. But how can I change this disaster?

“The important bufalari talk all the time about political parties. In order to vote, I have to go to the boss and do as he tells me. But I am past the age where I want to vote as he says. But the boss is like a king. There are quite a few guys who vote here. But for now I am not interested. But when I get to the age when it does interest me, yes. And now I’ve said a lot of things I didn’t mean to. I can talk well about a lot of things of the countryside and of buffaloes. And then nobody would need to give you an explanation. I can talk about the moon, if it doesn’t rise when the sun sets. And if there’s a new moon, I know why. And how, even if I don’t see it for several days, it’s waxing or waning. And I can say the names and nicknames of all the buffaloes:[7]



The Lady Content with all

The Jewess Who pounds the nails

The Earner Who sees this estate

The Christian Who shows up for work

The General [no nickname)

The Hazelnut Who’s left in the cane break

The Do-nothing Who stays at the house

The Medalist Who adorns my house

The Drunkard Who gets home in the morning

The Invalid Who always has a disease

The Redhead Who never does what you want

The Doggie Who makes even the dogs sad

Poggioreale From the town near Campolungo

Plentiful Who gives milk till the end

The Poor Girl Who always gives good milk

The Crybaby Who cries for her own reasons

The Lady Who does as she pleases

The Cheater (explained below)

Chilly Who can even smell the cold

The traitor Who always sells you out

Jealousy Who makes you talk trash

The Bridgroom

The Fair

“The bull doesn’t have a name, he alone. The male calves also have none, but a young heifer takes her name at her first calving and milking. How do I know how to recognize one from another? Well, how do you recognize other people? It’s the same with buffaloes. The names of the buffaloes of the other herders are similar, but I don’t know them all. But whoever comes to know the buffaloes deeply will know them perfectly well. Here are some others:



The Harlequin Who is dressed like a harlequin

The Durable Who lasts the whole way

Salernitana Who goes to Salerno to be cured

Miss Sharp-tongue Who never stops talking trash

Bossy Who does as she pleases, like a boss

The Convincing Who makes you believe you’re good

Intolerable Because this place is intolerable to her

Indivisible Who divides the profits unfairly

Miss Contrary When all is bad, God is our hope

Miss Salty Who always makes you talk

August In August we settle accounts

Useless Her best days are long gone

Strawbed On the straw she will surely die



“The names certainly have a significance and there is no need to explain them. They are the actions and reasons that the buffaloes show us every day. The dogs have names, too. We gave one buffalo the name Poggioreale. They say that Poggioreale is a prison near Naples, and there’s another Poggioreale near Campolungo.

“Here you aren’t able to talk with anyone, you can only call to the buffaloes and so they are like your family. My mother now farms tomatoes and has a tomolo and a half that she sharecrops with Matassini. One brother drove a tractor for 20 years on another estate, and there’s another who’s pensioned because he’s crippled and he went in search of some sort of trade but couldn’t find one. The one who is 30 years old made it to middle school because he went to school for 9 years. And I stay here. When evening comes around, all four of us brothers sleep in one double bed and my mother sleeps in a single bed. The house has 2 rooms and the kitchen is outside and you can see our cottage when you are passing the manor house.

“Miss Do-nothing got her name because we are always working. The nickname, ‘Who never breaks a sweat’ I’ve already talked about. The Medalist—aren’t there people who cheat others? I’ve only given a name to one buffalo, Christian, because there was a buffalo who was called that and after she died I gave her name to a new one. We always do that; when one dies, someone else takes the name.

“When a male calf is slaughtered, we keep the skin and put it onto another calf, because only when the mama smells the skin of her own calf and senses her own child will she let down the milk.

“Miss Cheater was a name that was invented because there was some girl here who cheated on someone. Something is always happening like that, and the gossip starts. ‘So-an-so touched so-and-so’s breast!’ There are girls that come here to work in the tomatoes or the tobacco. They come in a truck and they leave in one. Before leaving they wash their hands and faces and change their clothes near the manor house. Do I need to say more? This hasn’t happened to me, but such things do happen.

“The bull, when the females are in heat, comes up and jumps up on the female, but if she isn't ready she can lower her tail and then nothing is going to happen. Just like a woman: when she has other ideas, she just shuts up and says nothing and doesn’t even come around.

“I don’t know anything. Some guy goes down to the coast, to Battipaglia or Campolungo, learns a little and becomes a soldier. He goes away, he sees stuff, there’s always new stuff for a soldier. And then war comes along, and he has to go off to war. If someone calls you, you go. But we only have to die once. But how much more war can happen now? What more do they want to do?

  “Only we herders understand the frogs. When the evening comes, their work is not finished. If I had the money, I would build me a house, because sooner or later we’ll quarrel with the boss, and I’ll have to go find another house, and I’ll be ruined! And I would also like a little property to make myself a garden. Or maybe to stay with the boss but become a field hand, or even dig ditches. But not to take care of animals any more!”

---

[1] Cosimo has underestimated his mother’s age, it would seem, unless we are to believe that she gave birth to her first child at age 10.

[2] This will have been in September of 1943, during Operation Avalanche.  The shelling was probably from British warships aiming at German gunnery and panzer positions up in the mountains inland. Some idea of the intensity of the shelling can discerned from the fact that Eboli is some 15 kilometers from the Bay of Salerno where the invasion commenced.

[3] A tomolo was an ancient land measure roughly four meters square in Campania.

[4] Salerno is about 25 km from Eboli, Naples about 70 km.  Battipaglia is about 9 km away.

[5] Tempo was a photojournal that was widely circulated in Italy in the mid-twentieth century.  Carlo Levi was a famous artist and author who was a dissident during the Mussolini dictatorship and was exiled as punishment to the Matera province, about 50 km away, and there wrote a famous book called Christ Stopped at Eboli which detailed the backwardness of this region and the suffering of the local peasants.  Armenia Balducci was a famous Italian actress.  The point is that Cosimo is so isolated that he knows nothing about contemporary Italian culture.

[6] I assume this will have been one of the Coppi brothers who were famous cyclists during the era.

[7] Cosimo’s dialect is so pronounced that the journal has had to translate his comments into Italian.  That is particularly difficult with some of the names and epithets.  But there is a lyrical, rhythmic quality to them in the dialect that I can’t begin to render in English.

Cilentan Centennarians

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-delicious-herb-might-be-why-the-italians-live-so-long_us_56fd677ce4b0daf53aef1df1