WWOOF Italy Farm Lessons: Animals' Usefulness

15 Feb 2011

Donkeys.

Why would a farmer have donkeys, I ask myself? Goats and cows make milk. Sheep make wool. But donkeys? Well, they carry stuff, but Angelo has a truck, so is that really necessary anymore? According to Sergio (who as an Italian anthropologist studying identity in Italy’s Campania region (this one) has come to be my top informant), donkeys are a part of Campania identity. Angelo told him that how a farmer treats his donkeys is “a reflection on his ability and success as a farmer”. So they are symbolic…for all this extra work? “For Angelo, yes, but not for all. Donkeys are such a large part of Campania identity because they have historically been so necessary for transporting heavy loads in this mountainous terrain. In Amalfi, (a quaint town and tourist Mecca that is known for its houses built into the side of the mountain), many who built houses there today still use donkeys. The machinery necessary and practical to build on such difficult, steep terrain is often too expensive and impractical. Long story short, because of their past usefulness and at times because of their ongoing usefulness we still have to take care of these damn donkeys.
*this is hardly a worthy complaint; their personalities can be more developed and they can be more playful than dogs. And since it is rare that someone asks a dog owner to defend a practical use for his dog, donkey owners deserve the same rights.

Bunnies and Chickens.

At this farm, they eat primarily the meat that they make themselves. Thus, bunnies and chickens. So little and infrequent. This is the tradition diet of this area, pre-WWII. People ate very little meat, lots of vegetables, lots of grains. Closer to the sea they would have eaten more seafood; here perhaps the occasional wild boar from the mountains. This is the more realistic Mediterranean diet. Very little meat, lots of vegetables, and another major food group often under stressed: legumes.

Glorious Legumes.

Fava beans (as well as other legumes such as chickpeas) have developed as a necessary part of Italian peasant cuisine because they are a necessary part of agricultural sustainability. Very abridged agricultural lesson: of many very important compounds, vitamins, and minerals in the soil, nitrogen is one that plants absolutely cannot grow without. Legumes, however, are different than most other plants in that, rather than taking nitrogen from the soil, they fix nitrogen from the air and actually add more nitrogen to the soil. So a traditional farmer would know that seasonally fava beans need to be rotated throughout the garden to keep nutrients cycling and the soil nitrogen rich. Conveniently, the same beans are also an extremely important source of protein and fiber, so necessity made beans become an important part of the traditional cuisine.