Campania is currently made up of five provinces: Naples, Salerno, Avellino, Benevento and Caserta.
In the course of these posts about the food culture of Campania, I have been very focused on the province of Naples. In an early post I discussed wine making in Avellino, and we visited the tile makers in Salerno (where we also visited a buffalo dairy and mozzarella producer), but I have not discussed the region that is now known as Caserta—that one passes through on the way from Rome to Naples.
I had the opportunity two weeks ago to visit the Bernabei Farm in southern Lazio in the town of San Giovanni Incarico. The farm has been supplying the Academy’s Rome Sustainable Food Program (RSFP) since 2006, when founding chef Mona Talbott found Giovanni Bernabei and his wife selling at a small farmers market in Rome. This led Mona and Alice Waters to visit the farm, and from this a long relationship formed. The presence in the produce that is brought from the farm to the Academy is tasted every day, and the importance of this is reflected in the portrait of Giovanni Bernabei that hangs in the Academy kitchen.
I was eager to see the farm and so I drove the 100 kilometers south to San Giovanni Incarico through the help of chef Sara Levi of the RSFP. Sara has been here since the early years of the program—starting as an Intern under Mona.
I arrived in the main piazza and called Assunta Bernabei. The next thing I knew, Giancarlo Bernabei pulled up next to my car and asked me to follow him to the farm.
The farm is really two parcels of land next door to each other and there is a third parcel I would learn about later.
In discussing the valley, Giancarlo talked about the defining feature being the monastery of Monte Cassino in the distance. The abbey there was the first house of the Benedictine Order. It was established by Benedict of Nursia around 529. It was for the community of Monte Cassino that the “Rule of Saint Benedict” was composed.
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I could see it clearly from where we stood and my mind went back to Marian and my first trip down to Naples when we stopped there.
I was not prepared for Giancarlo then saying that, actually, the land that we were on used to be part of Naples and that the Liri river that I had crossed shortly before arriving was the border. All of a sudden, we actually were not in Lazio but in historic Campania. In fact, we were in the historic provence known as the Terra di Lavoro, also known as Liburia. It was at its largest in the 13th century when it extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea and the islands of Ponza and Ventotene to the Apennine’s and the southern end of the Rovento Valley. In Italian the name means “Land of Work,” but in fact it derives from the ancient Liburia, which took its name from the ancient Italic tribe of the Leborini.
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Cassino is located at the foot of Monte Cairo near the confluence of the Gari and the Liri rivers. The Liri has its source on Monti Simbruini. When it joins the Gari it becomes the Garigliano and heads west to the sea at Minturno south of Gaeta. Excited at the fact of this valley being part of Campania, I pulled out my phone to show Giancarlo the map of Campania from the Vatican map corridor and asked him to show me where San Giovanni was.
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I was disappointed when he said it was not on the map. Today we were back at the Vatican, and I thought I found it on the Latium map. We were headed to the farmers market at Casale Podere Rosa where we were to see Assunta and Giancarlo and indeed Assunta found San Giovanni instantly.
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The road from Rome south to Naples runs through this valley and it is for this reason that it became so contested in World War II after the Allies landed in Southern Italy and started moving north. This progress was halted in the winter of 1943-44, thwarted by the Nazi’s Gustav Line. Monte Cassino with its monastery was the linchpin of the line, and it was the scene of four bloody battles in which the monastery was destroyed. It was finally captured on June 5th. The famous monastery was largely destroyed. It was later rebuilt.
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The land at the Bernabei farm is gently sloping facing east down to the river valley. The soils are a mixture of clay and tuff with other organic overlays Giancarlo explained as we walked around the parcel how his father had taken over the land of his grandparents and sought to better use the land through organic farming. He worked to understand which crops did the best on which soils. The sloping land allows the soils to drain well.
There is a strong emphasis on bringing natural habitats into the fields which allows for natural pest management—birds that eat insects because they are provided shelter in thickets of brush or reeds on the side of the pond where Giancarlo gets the water he uses for the limited irrigation that he does. The largest pest that he has to deal with are the wild boars. The strategy he employs with them is to hook up a radio to a car battery to play music at night. Apparently the music makes the boars believe there are humans around and this frightens them off.
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I was very impressed by the variety of what the family plants. This was evident in their stall at the farmers market. Crop rotation is important and certain squashes, nuts, and of course olives can be stored and sold for extended seasons if not all year long. Sara Levi, the chef at the Rome Sustainable Food Program who helped organize my visit sent me the following description of the farm that the Bernabei family created:
The Bernabei farm was born forty-one years ago, primarily out of the family's need to eat well, thus embracing from the outset an environmentally friendly cultivation method, and officially becoming an organic farm in 1992 with the first EEC regulation.
The company covers an area of 6 hectares and is dedicated to horticultural/fruit production and the harvest of spontaneous species. It is located in the Lazio region in the province of Frosinone in the lower Ciociaria, a territory that formerly belonged to the province of the "Terra di Lavoro", whose inhabitants were known as “Terroni” by virtue of their strong attachment to the cultivation of the land.
It is a small company whose beating heart is the respect for seasonal rhythms and the maintenance of a rich biodiversity, both cultivated and wild. Therefore, most of the cultivated varieties are of ancient and of native origin, and have undergone a process of adaptation with the surrounding environment, which is important to ensure highly stable and quality production.
Another fundamental aspect that contributes to a stable and quality production is the maintenance of soil fertility: in this regard in addition to the use of organic fertilizers as permitted by organic agriculture, we pay close attention to the treatment of the soil. For this reason we rotate plots of land to rest (fallow), in order to increase the amount of organic matter in the soil.
For the plant's defense system we rely on natural biological pest control; only occasionally when the presence of pathogens/parasites is such to threaten the profitability of crops, we intervene with products permitted in organic farming.
Our production is based on the harvest of wild species and the cultivation of horticultural and fruit species. As a result, our farm is so rich in biodiversity that we have, over the years, reached a veritable synergy between the wild species and the cultivated species.
The spontaneous species that we harvest include cicoria, maritime chard, dandelion greens, borage, mallow, plantain, red clover, poppy in the vegetative stage, wild carrot, sorrel and other minor species, all of which we use to create an exceptional mixture.
Within the horticultural species our production is based on the following botanical families: solanaceae, brassicas, alliums, chenopods, asteraceae and cucurbits. Growing mostly ancient and native varieties such as the “Patataro” tomato, the shallots of “Campodimele”, the “Gaeta” puntarelle, the “Friariello Napoletano” broccoli, the pepper of “Pontecorvo”, the long “Napoletana” squash, cannellino bean of “Atina”.
While for fruit species the greatest cultivation is focused on mandarin and followed by lemon, orange, persimmon, plum, apricot, pomegranate, fig and prickly pear. To evaluate the level of ripeness of the fruit we use our experience based on empirical methods concerning the softening of the pulp and the change of color, the latter being fundamental to evaluate the ripening of citrus fruits.
While they use tractors and modern techniques, they also carry on the tradition of keeping donkeys, which in past times were the important tools to work the land. Giancarlo says that when it gets really muddy, the donkeys, Gillo and Nella, prove invaluable to provide the power to drag farm tools. Giancarlo graciously provided me with boots to allow us to walk around their fields of beans, garlic, and peppers.
One would have to write a textbook on farming to do justice to all that the Bernabei’s have learned and how they practice. Their farming is rooted in a reverence for the land and an understanding of both traditional techniques and modern knowledge.
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We went to his house that had been his grandparents’ house, and he showed me both how products were stored in the cantina and a museum of artifacts from generations of farming. He explained that the people of this region were called after their simple shoes that are much like Mexican sandals, and like their Mexican counterparts were made of old tires in the mid twentieth century. We discussed this over freshly squeezed pomegranate juice and a plate of the traditional Neopolitan Christmas Cookies known as Mostaccioli. Mostaccioli are an almond based cookie that are covered in chocolate. These cookies have a distinct rhomboid shape and there are various stories about the origin of the name from the main ingredient “must” from the Latin “mustum” to their shape that might be seen as a mustache.
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Giancarlo showed me the family brand which is with a BG and said that all the males in their family are given names that begin with the letter “G.” It is a very practical approach. We explored the exterior of the house and I heard stories about the impact of World War II when the house was taken over to be a field kitchen. There are bullet holes that have been left as markers of the time along with a German helmet hanging on the wall. Unexplored ordinance is still occasionally found by farmers—so even after eighty years the horror of war remains present.
After our visit, we drove into town to visit Assunta and his father Giovanni who is unfortunately afflicted with a degenerative disease. Assunta is an amazing person who exudes warmth and with great cheer inspires her husband to remember things by quizzing him about things such as the populations of various cities over time. According to Sara, Giovanni was always a numbers person. She talked about how they sold at the farmers markets, and why where they were located was so important—it is equidistant from Rome and Naples—being 100km from each. They both told me that it was Giovanni who realized that they should add fruit and specifically citrus trees to their mix and that the coast by Terracina due west from them would be the perfect place, and so they at first rented and finally purchased the land by the sea that they grow their fruit on. Like the Iliri that works to get to the sea so did they—and like the centuries of travelers who have gone from Naples to Rome and Rome to Naples through the Illiri Valley they continue to thrive by having access to two great markets. Geography is destiny!
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We had an amazing lunch of beans, green beans, radicchio, peppers and frittata. It was so similar to the meals prepared by Sara and Fausto here at the Academy—and I remarked on this and Assunta said that Giovanni was a firm believer of limiting the amount of meat one eats.
After this we of course had local cheeses and as chestnuts are in season we concluded with Giancarlo roasting chestnuts in the fireplace.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was 4:30. It was a magical experience in which the Bernabeis were so generous.
As I was to be in Naples the following week, we agreed that we would try to meet at the farmers market in Rome the week after.
I drove to the coast to go visit the amazing Cave of Tiberius at Sperlonga which will be the subject of another post. I got up early the next morning to drive up to Terracina that Giancarlo had said is so wonderful. I knew that I was driving past their land but could not pinpoint it—but I did get a sense for the land. Here was another marshy area that had been reclaimed in the early twentieth century as had the Pontine marshes to the north. In fact this area is sometimes known as the Southern Pontine Marshes. Terracina has a beautiful setting overlooking the sea and its Roman origins are evident in the temples and theaters that have been excavated in the middle of the historic center.
This weekend we went to the mercato agricolo, bio & locale, at the community center Casale Podere Rosa which is in northeast Rome not far from Monte Sacro. Casale Podere Rosa is a community based organization in an old farm house of some size from the early twentieth century. It and the small parcel around it is a remnant of earlier times before the city grew up around it. The organization has rented the building from the City of Rome for the past 30 years. It houses a library, a small movie theater, classrooms, and a cafe. The farmers market was composed of Bernabei, a local cheese producer, and a local olive oil producer at the time that we arrived which was at the end of the market so there may have been a few more stalls. Assunta spoke highly of the organic cafe and she was right—it is excellent. To have lunch there we became members. They explained that because it is toward the end of the year our membership would be good through 2024. Even though we head back to San Francisco this coming week, I am excited that we have this additional reason to come back to Rome.
Italians are very connected to place and they know their places—these places are how the define themselves. It has been almost a hundred years since Mussolini, on January 2, 1927, abolished the province of Terra di Lavoro and yet its memory lives on. The old farm house that is the home of Casale Podere Rosa stands as a connection in its neighborhood to a prior agricultural time. Italians were so alarmed by the impacts of fast food culture on their cuisine and their land that it led to the founding of the Slow Food Movement.