While I often say that "I have no connection to the farm" -- what I really mean, is that I did not grow up on a farm (nor did my father who couldn't have had a more urban upbringing living through the Great Depression and WWII in Detroit's "Motor City"). However, I come from a long line of "peasant" farmers (as my nana would say) -- who eeked out a living as shepherds in the hills of Intermesso in Abruzzo Italy.Pictured here is my great-great-grandfather (bottom left), great-grandmother (Bettina, middle), and grandmother (Elgira, dark hair, top center). This photo, taken in Italy, always makes me pause -- seeing the dirt under my great-great-grandfather DiGiacomo's nails and the sparkle in his eye. Monetarily poor but happy, I imagine, to be connected to the land, digging in the soil, herding goats and sheep, and tending to the family gardens.
When my grandmother and her family came to America in 1913, they brought with them what would become a tradition of "backyard farming" -- chickens, fruit trees, a few pigs, and tomatoes. They made their own pork sausage in the basement, dried tomato paste on their tin roof, and the canned tomato sauce to last the winter. My "big nana" (great grandmother) never learned to speak English, unlike her children who Americanized as quickly as possible, but she spoke to me through food every time I sat in her kitchen during summer visits to Pennsylvania. I guess this is where my farming heritage comes from ... it's the only explanation I have for the goats in my backyard, tomato seedlings in my kitchen window, and chickens pecking in a side yard coop!
I expect Nicoletta will be the next in a long line growers to make the most of their land wherever it may be (even if we skipped a couple generations)!
