Una Casa Molto Amata (A House Well Loved)

I’ve been dreading this day, for a while. We’ve sold the house that my siblings and I grew up in. Five years after our mum passed away, at age 90. Once she had gone, we knew this home of so many memories would leave our family.

“Ciao Gianni.” I open the front door for my brother. He is here to have a last look with me around the house, making sure we have emptied everything. Of course, it’s also the last chance to say bye to this home.

“Hi Melina, how are you?” and he kisses me on the cheek.

We start to take a stroll around the house and all the outdoor areas. I’m hit with nostalgia as I’m remembering things.

In my family we have many traditions. Practices and ways of doing things, that have survived generations, and remained a central part of our family life. When we immigrated from Italy to Australia in the 1950s; my parents continued those traditions. In Italy, my parents lived off the land, and it was something they wanted to continue at their new home.

When my mum Francesca and my dad Domenico first purchased the land for our house; there were only a few sparse sheds dotted across the yard. It was surrounded by dead grass. And there were no trees to break up the space, it was easy to see the neighbour’s back fence, which was a long way from the back door. By the time we were in our teens, that arid yard had a vegetable garden, various fruit trees, a chicken shed, and a separate yard with goats and, on occasion, also sheep. We use to all joke that sheep from my uncle’s farm would go on holiday to our home: because that was where his males bred with our females.

Everything was homemade: The pasta, the tomatoes that made the sauce, the meat came from our farm animals, including yearly winter sausages. One that was cured, hanging for two months, or there were also the ones sitting inside big jars emersed in their own fat, to preserve them. The fat, known to us as rasso. With a snap and a pop the fat would melt away and cook the sausage, filling every corner of the kitchen with the aroma. Salad ingredients like lettuce and cucumber were grown in our garden too. You could count on one hand, the things not produced by us.

We round a corner and through a doorway, it’s the kitchen.

The old-style kitchen, with original appliances and benchtops. The bench sits opposite the window, empty, sparkling clean. I don’t have to think very hard to remember the bench dusted with flour. My mum bent over it, dressed in her strict black outfit, honouring her parents who, by that time, had both passed away back in Italy. I can picture her kneading the flour, churning cracked eggs through it for pasta. The eggs from our chickens. And when I was a bit older, my sister Antonietta and I started making pasta too. I saw then why my mum’s upper arms were broad and toned. It was a workout. My dad also used to say, “We no get fat, we get strong.” And he’d raise his arms dramatically.

Then of course the manual pasta machine was used. It had to be turned clockwise and adjusted to the desired thickness while dusting the dough with flour to ensure each time it didn’t stick together.

The kitchen leads into a laundry then out onto an expansive veranda with an outdoor set overlooking the huge yard, more like a farm then a suburban backyard.

“These oranges will be producing this year, for the new people if they maintain it,” Gianni says. I nod.

We head down the gravel path towards a shed. We step inside.

It was basically our second kitchen and there was a long table with seats around it. There’s a roller-door, it never had a car in it though.

The built in brick pizza oven is in here. It’s a strange feeling looking at it, for the last time. The echoes of past gatherings and family are at the forefront of our minds.

My dad would check the hands of my sister and I, to ensure we had no nail polish on. We weren’t allowed to help knead the pizza dough if we were wearing nail polish. If we were, Gianni and my other brother Alessandro teased us, that they got to help, and we didn’t. Poking out their tongues and saying, “Ha, Ha.”

Making pizza was a fortnightly occurrence. Always eagerly anticipated. Everyone came for dinner on pizza night. The garage that housed the pizza oven would have heat emitting from it. My mum and the other women put the sauce and the toppings on the pizzas. My dad with the big pizza shovel would be responsible for sliding the formed round dough into the oven and also for rotating them. The pizza would be cooked in a minute. It was warm and homely, standing around with relatives on a winter’s night in front of the heat from the oven.

Gianni looks around, opening cupboards, making sure all is cleaned out.

“Is it all clear?” I ask.

“Yeah sis.”

We head outside again, down the path, past olive trees, and a fenced off vegetable patch that has nothing inside anymore. Just a barren soil area. There, ahead of us is the animal shed. One section was for the chickens; and across from it was the section for goats. Then, every June, our dad kept a pig for slaughter.

“They’re not going to use this for animals,” Gianni says. Shaking his head.

“They’ll probably just use it for storage or just knock it down.”

When we were very young, we weren’t allowed in the shed in June. But we used to sneak a peek when my dad wasn’t around. The pig would be munching on some food in the trough, or just lounging on some hay. Then came the day I was caught by my dad.

I remember being in the yard, playing alone, when I got an idea. I strolled up the path towards the animal shed, checking over my shoulder if anyone had seen me. With a sense of mischief, I pushed the door though it was heavy. The pig was gone, I wasn’t so naïve by this point in my life, I just wasn’t prepared for what I was going to see next. I don’t know what my thought process was, I just felt compelled to go into the garage. I shoved at the wrought-iron door, with more force than I used on the previous door. Then it gave-way and I stepped inside. I looked up at the support structures holding the roof, scanning down, fist I saw a bloodied butcher’s hook.

The pig was headless, strung by the feet and the skin on. The animal had been split down the middle, with the ribcage exposed with all manner of muscle tissue and sinew on view. My eyes scanned down, following a trickle of blood from the carcass, it was collected underneath in a bucket on the floor. I backed away, and was startled when I felt someone grab my shoulder from behind. “Ah.” I spun around; it was my dad.

“Cosa ci fai qui?” I squirmed away from my dad and sprinted back to the house. Through tears I saw my mum walking in the yard, I dove at her, burying my face in her apron, she placed a comforting hand on me. My dad followed behind and when he got up to me he said, “That’s why you don’t get close to your food.” I peeked a glance at my dad’s face, he looked at my mum, then walked away, saying something under his breath. Needless to say, I learnt my lesson.

My dad and uncles, were all involved in making sausages. They would mince the pork by hand. And their parents before them did this process as well. Just in a smaller house. It was men’s work. My brothers learnt the techniques as well when they were a bit older. The men would pull apart the meat and trim the fat away. There had to be the correct ratio of fat to meat. Mincing it through large machines, and seasoning it, elbow deep in the mixture, churning it with salt and fennel seeds. There were also chilli sausages. So, dried chilli powder was mixed through those ones. They only used natural ingredients, with no chemicals in the preserving process. Something my dad was very proud of. Mocking store-bought ones. They were always tasting as they went, frying some, but raw was okay too.

The meat had to sit overnight before being formed into sausages. Left overnight sitting out, covered with a tablecloth. A trick invented by my dad was to put water on the hob, with some garlic in there, then heat that water. So, it could be sprinkled over the meat and worked into it to make it softer and easier to go through the casings. So, the casings did not break when it went in. The men then would push the mince into pig intestine casings, pricking the casings as the meat went it so that any air pockets were released. It was then tightly sealed with string on the ends. It was a familiar sight seeing the sausages hanging in the garage and curing over the following two months. The garage door was left open so cool air could go in.

There were other types of sausages made as well. For instance, there were sausages, cut into chunks, and layered to fit inside large jars. Then fat that was rendered from the pork, was poured into the jars, over the top. Then with the cold weather, the fat would go solid, inside the jar, preserving the sausages. I used to commonly see these jars at the bottom of the garage pantry, just seeing the white of the solidified fat from the see-through jars.

Gianni and I are back inside the home now. Walking past the dining area to get to the bedrooms. Dinners were of course a multi course affair, pasta as a first course. Then various meat dishes, and plentiful salads. If that wasn’t enough then during the wintertime we had a supper meal. My siblings and I would hear my dad frying up some sausage slices. Even if we weren’t hungry the smell of fresh sausage cooking would draw us into the dining room, and we’d take our seats. My mum would set the table around us and place some home-made bread onto the table. We would all sit there and enjoy making a sausage and bread open sandwich. My dad would have his with some home-made wine. Then we’d all go to bed with full bellies.

We finish looking around the home and everything is ready for the new people.

“Ah well, that’s it then,” Gianni says.

“Here comes the real estate pulling up into the driveway,” I say.

I hand over the key to the agent, feeling emotional but not showing it.

We walk out to our cars as casually and nonchalantly, as if we don’t feel like a big part of us is gone forever. “I’ll call Antonietta and Alessandro when I get home and tell them it’s done,” Gianni says.

La Fine.