Earlier this week Calder and I had a day to ourselves so we packed a lunch (prosciutto {from last year’s pigs} sandwiches, wine, and apples) and went walking further up the mountain just south of the farm.
The forests here are still held in common, Parma being one of a handful of provinces still doing so in Italy. There is certainly a different feel to a wood that is known and used by residents - particularly when that use is so intimately linked to the local food culture (mushrooms, chestnuts, wild boar) or something as basic as collecting firewood.
After lunch, we started to collect chestnuts (fare il raccolta di castagna), which seem to be dropping everywhere these days, all spiky grreen globes with the smoothest, shiniest chestnuts inside, almost like drops of polished wood. We took only what had fallen on the dirt road, nothing from the forest, and of those only the best of the best, maybe a bit more than a kilo - about a tenth of what we could have easily taken home.
Dinner was roasted chestnuts, bruschetta (with mushrooms also collected from the woods that day), salad from the garden and bread from the brick oven .
Needless to say we are eating very well here. Last week we spent a few days in Florence, where the ideal of Tuscan food is pimped out to tourists. Because we’ve had the good fortune to be eating that way everyday, we didn’t feel the pressure to find a great ‘authentic’ meal. We were able to find some very cool spots that we may have otherwise missed, one of which was one of the coziest and lovliest vegetarian restaurants (packed only with Italians, I might add) I’ve been to in quite awhile.
We’ve ended up being here for longer than initially planned, partly because we haven’t found other arrangements and partly because we’ve been so content to stay. We’ve found that sweet balance of daily familiarity and newness.
Until we find an olive harvest in the south, it looks like we’ll stay put.
