Ferruzzano Superiore, Calabria
The alley was narrow, shaded by the late sun. Stone houses leaned close, silent and empty.
By one doorway, an old wood-fired oven rested, cracked and worn. Every family once had one. Bread was life. You baked, and you shared.
I thought of my mother, a girl from a nearby coastal town. She used to say, “We were poor, but we never went without bread.”
Sometimes she traded with fishermen: a warm loaf for a plate of sardines, salt still on the skin. There was always fish.
Even now, as I write, I can smell her bread—warm, heavy, persistent.
