four months without buying food: Pasta, bread and cheese and minestrone

When I was seven year old I went to college with my brother,six, and never expected to spend nine years in the "continent", or Italy mainland as we called now. Were we lucky at that time? We were too young to understand but my father and my mother never told us a lie. They said clearly that we were too poor and that it was for us a good opportunity to have a better education....and thinking now, a better variety of food.
Yes we did have a better education, altough for me knowledge comes from different places and school education yes gives you knowledge and a good start in life, but is never enough to keep you alive! My grand father always told me that the hoe was better than the pen. Or, more useful. Always the thruth is in the midle.
But, what about food. Did we eat better? No. But we did eat a better variety of food. My first negative impact was the water. In my parents town water was gathered from the fountains distribuited in various places in town. Water coming directly from the above mountain, untreated and pure. The water in college was undrinkable because of the use of clorine. But we did get use to it.
Food was a surprise. Meat, fish,different cakes,different types of pasta,rice etc was not common on our family table. Having meat at least 3 times a week was a luxury. Jam and butter in the morning was also unusual. Cocoa was also a misterious thing to be use with milk. Breakfast in my family was with local milk from cows or sheep ( we use to drink sheep milk and as you know we make cheese from it ) with home made bread ( Sardinia bread is a very thin bread like crisps and it was crashed into the milk. Basically what is now the cornflake type of thing). You would not need sugar as milk was reach of fat and with it much sweeter than water down milk we buy nowdays.See picture below of our bread.My mother still make it. if well kept it last for a couple of months still crunchy.

Lunch in my family was generally pasta with tomato souce most of the time. Water at the table for the young ones and home made red wine for the adults. Dinner consisted in bread and cheese and various home grown salads when in season .Fruit was mainly home grown, but again when available. We did not buy much fruit in those days ( 1960's).

Minestrone was very seasonal and would last at least two meals. Meat was rare. Once a week, not always. Roast chicken was a big event to remember, but meat was abboundant in special occasions such as weddings. The family pig was killed at the beginning of winter and that was the main intake of proteins. We rarely killed a chicken as they were too precious for the eggs. The food we ate was most of the time the same but changed in the seasons. It was genuine and quality was excellent.

In college on the other hand we learned to eat pasta in different souces, have meat e roast chicken often and discovered that breakfast was not only made with milk and bread. Quality was not probably the same, but I gues it was not too bad. I do remember that the cook use to add litres and litres of water to the milk so she would have enough for the 250 plus kids in the refettorio. It was some kind of cheating .

Now, what is available on the supermarket shelves was untinkable back then. The big change for me is not the variety of food we have access to, but the attitude towards it. I do accept that the aboundance is not a negative thing, but it comes with a more sottile negativiness. We buy too much because there is too much to choose from. We buy even when we do not need it. Our eyes are full of food before our stomach is. And we eat with our eyes before we are hungry. And because of that, we have no good relation with the food we buy and eat. And because of that we wasted. And we wasted because has no value. So I have experienced three different approches to food.

The first in my family, were food was important for our nutrition,was local. own grown and own made. The second in college were food was a learnig process about the variety of it,coming from different sources, and the discovery of manipulating food for the creation of dishes. The third one, related to the over production to please the palate before the stomach. Cheap food even if is coming from the other side of the world.

Yes food should be a pleasure but only if the food we eat has a relation with our being. Otherwise it is only stuff that goes in mechanically. My question is simple. Is it food (or is it not) the most important thing in our lifes? Everyone knows the answer.

Tomorrow I will be making more bread for the coming week and then see as I go.