On the kitchen table today… last of the season’s figs – backyard grown by an older Italian fellow nearby. (No, I didn’t pilfer them, 😄 he sells them to our local fruit shop). However, talking of figs, it did make me think of Nonno Anni taking those ones from the cemetery…
“During a trip back to Fossa, Nonno Anni and a friend were out walking one day when they came to a grassy clearing and a fig tree laden with fruit. Instinctively, Nonno Anni went towards it, struck by mouth-watering excitement but his friend pulled him back.
‘You can’t eat those! This used to be a cemetery. The roots of that fig tree…’ his voice lowered, ‘plunges into graves.’
Nonno Anni knew it was the old cemetery, his grandparents were buried there. The cemetery had been used and reused so much over the centuries that in times past, after fifty years, the bones would be dug up and placed in an osso sala or bone room so the graves could be reused. Not wanting to upset his friend, or cause a scandal, Nonno Anni refrained, but those luscious plump figs stayed in his mind.
He executed his stealth mission, solo. The next day, when most people were at work or shopping, he carried a bag, his step jaunty, out for an innocent morning walk… Concealed in the bag was a basket. When he came to the heavily laden tree, he first tasted the figs. They were spectacular. The tree hadn’t been touched for years and gave up its load with particular sweetness. Nonno Anni was still kissing his fingers to his lips at their deliciousness as he told me thirty years later. ‘The best figs I ever tasted.’
He filled the basket, hid it inside the dark bag and nonchalantly walked back into the village. His step was indeed even jauntier. Nonno Anni didn’t take the usual lane up to the house, he took the lower, darker route, threading through twisting, tunnelled walkways to get to his stalla. Inside the stable, the air is cool and dry, perfect to store fruit. He didn’t tell anyone at the time but occasionally, he’d steal away to have a fig or five. I’m sure that they were clandestine made them all the sweeter.”
Adapted from, Mezza Italiana
Zoë Boccabella 
A few years ago I visited Fossa a trovare familia. I walked the old streets, perhaps the very street you describe. I still see the houses in my mind.
That is very beautiful to say. I hope you trovato famiglia. I’m not sure if you walked those old streets before or after the earthquake, but, to me, either would have been affecting in its own way. Tante belle. xx
In 2017, I found my second cousin, through my maternal great grandfather, and his family. They still live in Fossa, along the road to Monticchio. My wife and I with my sister and her husband were treated to a traditional Abruzzo dinner. I lost count at thirteen courses and five different wines. Abbiamo mangiato troppo. After dinner we visited the cemetery and then walked the old streets including some in the zona rossa. They showed us what was our great grandfathers shoe shop, badly damaged and unsafe. We stayed at the Hotel Frederico II in L’Aquila and at the Monasterio Fortezza Santo Spirito near Fossa. We loved every minute!
That would have been such a wonderful visit. Reading of those familiar places you mentioned I was back there too. I’m so glad that you got to see your bisnonno’s shoe shop, though what a shame it was damaged by the earthquake. My family’s house also remains damaged as it was the day of the terremoto, sadly, and I hope that Fossa may return to its former self one day. So much history in that one place and so many who want to return. And I had to smile when I read of your traditional Abruzzo dinner. I think I mentioned in, Mezza Italiana about the ‘panarda’!! How lovely you got to experience that. We too had a ‘day of eating’ while in Fossa and still talk of it more than a decade later! That Abruzzese generosity and hospitality. Truly wonderful!