Part 2 – Il grande viaggio 1975… 50 years since Nanna Francesca and Nonno Anni took their ‘big trip’ overseas.
For this instalment, one photograph stands out – when Nonno Anni returns to Fossa more than three decades after emigrating to Australia. I wrote about this in Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar, in the chapter ‘Orange Drink – 6d’ and looking at this photograph again now, it takes me right back to sitting at the kitchen table when Nonno Anni handed me this picture and spoke of returning to his beloved Fossa for that first time. I can still smell the brewed coffee, feel the biscuit crumbs on the tablecloth, and see the tears in his eyes…
‘It seemed the entire village came out into the street when we arrived in Fossa,’ Nonno Anni shakes his head, marvelling. And having stood in that lane, I can almost hear the clunking open of shutters and doors, footsteps on stone.
He shows me a photograph of the return – Nonno Anni in his travelling suit, kneeling on the cobblestones surrounded by dozens of villagers clustered around him, many reaching out with a hand on his shoulders, his arms, his back. The emotion in his face is pure. They never forgot him, enveloping him back into their village family. Several decades of poverty, migration, and the war had forever split an entire village. A period short in historical terms but long for those living through it, and everlasting in that there would forever be those who went beyond the mountains and those who stayed encircled by them.
The younger people in the photograph must’ve been thinking, ‘who are these people?’ but it’s clear the older people knew. It’s lovely how they embraced Nanna Francesca also, though she wasn’t from Fossa or Abruzzo. Of course, she too was very keen to see her family house again in Calabria, but that is in the next part of their travels… Buon Viaggio! 💛🌠
Colomba cakes are mostly bought and Nanna Francesca used to make a more modest Easter bread with hard-boiled eggs baked into it. This year I broke with tradition and made an ‘Easter lasagne’ for the family. It has been a rainy day so it seemed the thing to cook.
I never usually know what ‘international day’ it is but happened to see that today it’s in honour of rural women, so thought I’d share with you this rare photo of my great-grandmother taken of her alone.
…small moments of beauty.
For those in the Stanthorpe area or with a connection to it, the Border Post interviewed me recently about parts of the books set there. It was a pleasure to spend time in the area when researching the books, especially going back to where my family’s orchards stood, and always such a privilege to interview older, local people and learn their stories. xx
Buon anno a tutti and warmest wishes!
Came across this photograph of my family’s Applethorpe farm in the 1950s with the orchard in flower and realised when I was there doing research for Mezza and Joe’s, I happened to take a picture from almost the same spot 60 years later.
This is one of the first photographs I chose that I hoped would make the cover of Mezza Italiana (it’s on the back). Taken in the 1960s, it was dinner for my uncle’s birthday and one of the rare times the family got to eat together since one of my grandparents were usually doing a shift at their milk bar.
Today it is 70 years since my Italian grandparents, Nonno Anni and Nanna Francesca signed the lease on premises to start up their fruit shop and milk bar in Australia.
Traditional lasagne, for me, is in the same category of favourite, comfort food as a good, old-style hamburger with the lot. {Perhaps a reflection of an Italian-Australian upbringing!} I learned to make lasagne when I was about 11 or 12, and must have made hundreds over the years.
Italian internees at the ‘secret’ Western Creek internment camp in 1942. My grandfather, Annibale (far right, standing) was 18 years old and working as a farmhand at Applethorpe when he was interned.
One of the very few photographs taken inside my family’s milk bar in the 1950s (and also one of my favourites). Nonno Anni is behind the counter and Bisnonno Vitale is leaning on it.
Zoë Boccabella 