Word: innocenzo
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Dates: during 1946-1946
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...Innocenzo Pietropaoli fed himself and his wife Natalina and his daughter Maria by tilling his acre of land at Anticoli Corrado, a mountain village 35 miles north of Rome. Even in the remote and incredibly rich days of 1938, its produce (half of which went to the landlord) had to be carefully husbanded to feed the Pietropaolis...
...winter, the family rose at 8, breakfasted heavily on beans, potatoes, greens and polenta (corn meal). A little after 10, when the frost was off the ground, Innocenzo started to work; he did not stop until dusk, when there was another meal of polenta, minestrone and watered wine. In the spring and summer, when the work was harder, there would be richer food: bread soaked in olive oil, sardines, pasta, greens, cheese and wine...
...came war and another child, but little change. Innocenzo, who had scant appetite for heroics, wangled a job as a medical orderly and his wife got a Government allotment...
Figs & Frogs. But by the time the armistice sent Innocenzo home again (and cut off the allotment), the neglected farm yielded only enough for his wife and the children. They ate figs, chicory weeds, green apples, and frogs caught in the ditches. For the first time in his life, the peasant Innocenzo Pietropaoli went begging. In the fall he got a job as a harvester on another man's farm. His wife walked behind him, gleaning stray ears of wheat (eleven pounds...
...through 1945 life was a little better, but last winter the big drought parched the land. This spring, Innocenzo again stood in his field, clad in his army uniform (the only clothes he had), but he did not seem to be able to work as he used to. "How to get through to harvest time?" he asked. "How to get enough strength to work the land till then...