Memoirs of Rural Life - Harvest Time Past

This July heat brings back itching memories of harvest time in the late 70's. "Itching" because of the remembered scratch of the straw on sweaty skin. I recall that July day years ago when about 15 of us helped with the wheat harvest up at Primo di Pompeo's farm. I worked in the fields part of the morning and then helped the women in the kitchen.

The rented combine rumbled through the fields, cutting the wheat and binding it into gregni ("bunches" in Umbrian dialect). Groups of us followed the harvester and piled these gregni, into cavalletti (piles of about 30 gregni or bunches). We piled them in such way that rain would run off if a storm should come before the actual threshing (which would take place 10 days or more later, giving the cut wheat time to dry out).

The combine harvested on the level parts of the fields but hand scythes were used to harvest the wheat shafts which covered the hillsides. In those days of mezzadria (sharecropping) farming, a farmer like Primo di Pompeo who had to sustain a family on 53% of the yield of only about 18 acres of rolling hillside land, seeded the wheat even on hilly outcroppings! The men and women scything by hand worked rhythmically to their folk songs, cantarecchia. A row of men would sing out a verse to which the row of women responded, i.e., the rispetto e dispetto so characteristic of Umbrian folk music. A disappearing musical genre: agriculture is now fully mechanized and voices don't blend with the rumble of the tractors. Besides, one or two men alone can handle 18 acres if fully mechanized. Long gone are the days of andare a opere (or work rotation farm-to-farm).

Like all the women, I wore a cotton headscarf knotted behind my neck and a cotton shift-type dress (we'd buy our sinalini at the Friday open market), hefty work boots. The scarf also served for drying off the sweat. Pino and I arrived on the late side: about 7:00 a.m. Work had started around 4:00 a.m, launched with cups of hot milk and slices of bread.

Around 8:00 a.m., morning breakfast-time approached and I went into the kitchen to help out there. (How good to wash with the icy cold water at the fountain outside and take a pause from the heat and the itch!).

We cut thick slices of bread from the loaves Pompeo's wife Amalia had made in her outdoor bread oven. Elvira, Almalia's mother, had trekked over the hill from her farm to help out, carrying a plastic pail of fat tomatoes and cucumbers from her garden. They were sliced up in a large cracked and yellowed bowl, then doused with olive oil (their own, logicamente).

The kitchen was hot inspite of the thick stone walls which usually kept it cool: before dawn, the woodstove had been lit to cook the red speckled borlottti beans. They had soaked all night in cold water and had been bubbling away on the woodstove most of the early morning hours. Amalia was preparing the sughetto for the beans (and I'll add the recipe at the end) while Chiarina, a neighborwoman, was busy slicing thick slices of Amalia's bread. The combination of legume (borlotti beans) and a grain (bread) form a perfect protein. The typical Umbrian harvest breakfast is a perfect example of Mediterranean diet cuisine... and the best of "rural gourmet" or cucina genuina, as we like to call it.

Like all Umbrian farm families, Primo and Amalia had slaughtered a pig the winter before so their homemade prosciutto, salami, capocollo sidelined the beans and bread, as did their pecorino (sheep's milk) cheese. Another neighbor, Eva, was piling into one big wicker basket, tablecloth, plates, cutlery, glasses and into another, bottles of wine and water.

When we heard the harvester engine cut, Chiarina and Eva hefted the baskets on their heads and went down the kitchen steps to the farmyard just outside. They spread the tablecloth on the ground and set out the dishes on a rickety old makeshift table. Amalia followed with the big pot of fagioli. Elvira and I carried down the vegetables, bread and sliced meats, cheese. All our neighbor/field workers were washing up at the outdoor wash basin where Amalia often did the family laundry (no bathroom - the oxen stall was there if needed!). Amalia had left worn but clean towels nearby.

Ravenous appetites made quick work of the borlotti beans and bread, sliced meats and cheese, and the family red wine. The water and wine bottles accompanied everyone back to the fields: omniscient presences for all farm labor. I don't ever remember seeing anyone showing the effects: they say that the sugar in the wine energizes and they sweat away the alcohol....

A few of us women helped clean up and then headed back to the fields. Some women remained in the kitchen to help out in preparation of the bigger meal to be served a few hours later: lunch. The outdoor woodburning oven already held the roast goose (basted with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, wild fennel) surrounded by mounds of roast potatoes. The meat sauce for the pasta was bubbling away on the woodstove and the watermelon was already chilling in the fridge. Amalia and Elvira were cleaning the green beans - just picked - which would be served along with the goose, seasoned with olive oil, a bit of the family vinegar and chopped garlic.

Harvest time lunch generally concluded the day at about 2:00 pm. Often, one or two of the men dozed under the trees while the women washed up in the kitchen upstairs.