Gaining skills, losing skills.

During this week of discovery we have experienced tales of bread, pasta and cheese making. We have visited producers and growers and tasted their food. On our drives through the countryside of Lazio and Umbria we have seen the vegetable gardens and small scale (compared to some regions of Northern Europe) agriculture. We have walked a little around Bolsena and seen the bins of grape stalks and smelt the fermenting juice from the wine being made for home consumption. This is patently a region of great fertility peopled by those still in touch with the land and in possession of great skills. And yet these skills are in sharp decline and the countryside is being depopulated. Why make bread that is physically demanding and takes 24 hours of care, admittedly intermittent care, but care nonetheless, when you can buy supermarket bread for probably less money and very little effort? Never mind that it is unsatisfying, of dubious nutritional quality and is probably made with flour imported from elsewhere. Why spend a whole morning making pasta when you can buy it in more shapes and forms than you can probably name for very little money? Why undertake the drudgery and uncertainty of growing vegetables and keeping livestock, at the same time as trying to earn a living? These are questions that are being asked all over the world, not just here in Bolsena.

Signora Teresa

We spent a wonderful afternoon on Thursday being shown how to make pasta by Signora Teresa. At 84 she has been making pasta for her family twice a week for more years than most of us would care to remember. For those of us in the affluent west pasta is a convenient ingredient; readily available, quick and easy(ish) to cook and, above all, in it's dried form, cheap. Pasta can be dressed up with a fancy sauce or served economically with nothing more than a drizzle of olive oil and perhaps a grating of parmesan. In Britain we might eat it twice a week with no thought and even less consideration, more respect is given to it in Italy but how many people here still make their own? Why does Nonna Teresa? Making pasta must have a deeper symbolism than just the provision of bodily fuel. The procedure is tied up with complex aspects of nurture and love.

Mixing eggs into a 'Vesuvio' of flour

Nonna Teresa, while demonstrating her skill was a picture of restraint. Making pasta to her, her daughter and her grandson, was a normal everyday activity with no more mystery about it than peeling potatoes would be for the rest of us. And yet there she was, surrounded by 15 or so interested people, cameras flashing, who were recording this everyday experience. She handled it well concealing her astonishment and amusement that such a basic skill should be either alien or sought after. And yet there we were, asking questions and wanting to experience and acquire her lifetime of knowledge in just one short afternoon. She patiently pointed out when we should add more flour, knead more, add water to the dough or allow it to rest. Trying to articulate what was, to her, innate knowledge that should have needed no articulation.

Kneading the pasta dough

Nonna Teresa's skill, acquired over a lifetime of repetition, is something that is being lost. These everyday skills are losing their importance and, with their loss, society as a whole is the loser. Nonna Teresa's daughter no longer makes her own pasta on a regular basis. The labour of 'home made' is now saved for special occasions. Only the enthusiast or crank makes their own bread now.

These are small scale, domestic examples of everyday skills that are being lost but agriculture is also suffering. The days when every householder grew a few vegetables,saving their seed from yeaer to year, crop to crop, is fast disappearing. Many would not consider this a problem and yet this mass de-skilling, the loss of the ability to provide our own raw materials and then transform them into food, has serious consequences for the world. Many urban children are now so out of touch with the sources of their food that they have no knowledge of where milk, meat or eggs come from. To lose these connections, abilities and knowledge dis-empowers every one of us. Not only are we losing the skill to feed ourselves but we are surrendering our autonomy to transnational corporations on the way. We should all be very concerned about this. The future of the planet and the ability to feed ourselves should not reside in the hands of those whose motivation is profit and who have the power to dictate what we eat. The continued persistent de-skilling at all levels should be ringing warning bells for all of us.

Making ciciliana pasta

Nonna Teresa was tolerant of our inept attempts to make the simplest of pasta shapes but as a society we should not be so tolerant. I am not advocating a return to the supposed 'good old days' when peasants worked 15 hours a day with no security and little return, but I would like to see a move towards the realisation that the previous generation are a repository of skills and knowledge that is in real danger of being lost forever to the detriment of us all.

Nonna Teresa may not know how to send me an e mail but she can make 15 different types of pasta. Pasta that is economical and nutritious and which can feed family with one egg, a little flour and some water. That is a talent and skill which deserves huge respect and which should be valued, nurtured and disseminated. This sort of knowledge and skill is too valuable to be lost and I, for one, am grateful that Nonna Teresa shared it with me.

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