Tasting Italy at Easter …………… from a distance

Now, like so many families, Easter this year has been very different.

Not only have we been unable to travel to see our kids in the run up to the festival, but flying out to be with the Italian side of the family will have to wait a year.

Rosa is from Naples, and so she would always bake pastiera which is that Neapolitan tart made with cooked wheat, eggs, ricotta cheese, and flavoured with orange flower water, and the savoury bread containing cheese, and meat.

On occasion she would make a variation of the savoury bread with eggs on top, and because I am vegetarian she would make a special one without the meat.

Depending on how many of our kids came with us there could be upwards of fifteen sitting around the table for the Easter meal, which as all good family meals do could stretch out across the afternoon, only to start again in the evening.

The one concession would be that the table had been cleared the plates and cutlery washed and put away, with much coffee and limoncello consumed before we started again.

And I miss those gatherings as I do Italy in spring, when the mornings might begin with a chill but usually turn out hot and sunny, and when the stillness of the early morning is broken by the sound of church bells.

But this year is different for another reason because Simone died on the day before Easter Sunday, making the separation all that more bitter.

And while there will be another Easter in Italy, it will not be the same.

Pictures; the taste of Italy, 2020