For The Wild - FAT OF THE LAND - DOLCE on Family and Tradition S1：E5

00:00:00.000 Hi for the Weld community, Ayanna here. I am so excited to share our new series with

00:00:09.280 you, Fat of the Land. Before we begin, I'm just going to put the kettle on, and if you

00:00:14.820 can, I'd invite you to do the same. Make a cup of something warm, settle in a little.

00:00:20.480 I've been trying to start my days like this lately, just slowing things down enough to

00:00:24.860 actually arrive. Right now, I'm drinking Richu, which I'm honestly very grateful to have found.

00:00:31.180 I'm not someone who does well with coffee. My friends and collaborators know this all too well.

00:00:36.640 But Richu is made from roasted chicory root and cacao and other delicious plants, so it has that

00:00:42.400 dark, full-bodied feeling, but lands a lot more gently. It actually feels grounding, like it

00:00:49.260 settles into my body instead of speeding me past it and it's become a bit of a ritual just having

00:00:55.380 something warm in my hands and taking a breath giving myself a moment before moving into the day

00:01:01.120 so wherever you are if you can take a sip with me if you're curious you can learn more

00:01:07.420 at drinkrichu.com and thank you to rich you for supporting this series

00:01:11.720 we're also grateful to terra elaya a retreat space in southern italy rooted in enchantment

00:01:19.920 and renewal and sacred transformation it's the kind of place that invites you to step

00:01:25.020 out of urgency and into a different rhythm entirely and in some ways that question of rhythm

00:01:32.920 of how we live how we spend our time it's what brought me here in the first place

00:01:38.840 I came to Italy because I wanted to immerse myself in a certain kind of life, the one we imagine, where food matters, where meals take time, where there's a sense of continuity between land and people, a life that feels well-lived.

00:01:55.280 And I was curious about what would happen if I followed that desire all the way through, whether it would actually satisfy something or just sharpen the appetite.

00:02:03.720 in italy a long meal unfolds in courses antipasti primi secondi contorni and eventually dessert

00:02:15.860 arrives this episode is dolce the final course by the time we arrived here i had spent weeks

00:02:23.420 moving through farms markets vineyards kitchens and dinner tables each conversation seemed to

00:02:31.120 open onto another, and the questions I carried with me kept expanding. For this final episode,

00:02:38.120 we return back to Sicily with Carlo and Jesse at Slow Life Family Farm. The farm sits within

00:02:44.540 a landscape shaped by many generations. Ancient roads still cross the property. Old agricultural

00:02:50.460 systems remain visible in the hillsides. Everywhere there are traces of the people who came before.

00:02:57.160 Walking there, I kept thinking about how much knowledge lives inside ordinary life.

00:03:02.100 Knowledge carried by doing.

00:03:04.720 As Carlo walked us through the land,

00:03:07.020 he was introducing us to a place he had spent years learning how to live with.

00:03:16.140 For me, the land gave me freedom.

00:03:18.660 So the freedom to today say, okay, I'm going to be with you talking.

00:03:23.960 Yeah.

00:03:24.260 if i had a job i would have said oh we have to meet maybe on the weekend people you know think

00:03:31.020 you become slave of the land yeah somehow the land keep you here you you make your own little

00:03:36.520 bubbles your little world in which you live and then you come out from your bubble and then you

00:03:42.480 see the world and you say oh maybe i go back to my bubble where we are we are now all little

00:03:46.420 bubbles and you know in the little houses and and everybody's got a little bubble and it's nice to

00:03:52.620 make this bubble to meet and so thank you for coming and asking these questions

00:03:57.400 so welcome to Cinque Porte farm this farm actually it's we bought it me and Jesse in 2013

00:04:09.880 and the farm was you know for sale for five years nobody wanted to buy it he has 14 acres

00:04:19.400 and it's got three houses and a water mill and it's got a little woodland, a river, a diving

00:04:27.480 lagoon and when I met the owner I said what's going on here it's like it's paradise in Sicily

00:04:33.940 nobody wants to buy there is any ghost or something happened here that nobody want to move

00:04:39.920 tell us the truth you know and they told us that nobody want to buy because the place is an

00:04:45.240 archaeological site so it's on red area of restriction from archaeology so you can't build

00:04:50.840 anything like even a chicken house or a dog house we need to apply for planning and the house was

00:04:57.600 120 years without roof um we had uh eight years old tree in the kitchen and there was about all

00:05:06.360 the roof fall in the house so there was the roof plus 100 years of soil accumulated so one meter

00:05:12.000 20 before we got to the floor anyway we managed to buy it and you know it's uh it's been amazing

00:05:18.460 because i don't know if you notice this road here um it's actually an ancient motor wave

00:05:23.560 made by the greeks so it's a protected road by with archaeological means and i don't know if

00:05:30.740 you notice there are little bumps and i made them because this when we have we have not

00:05:35.240 much rain here the rain when it comes comes all at once and so massive floods similar to the one

00:05:43.320 of valencia and so this become a river there is a river coming down from there and a river coming

00:05:49.060 out from here and and so when this river comes nobody can use the road and it was a motorway

00:05:55.320 that connects siracusa with palazzola creide and back then when this city was built siracusa used

00:06:01.360 be the largest city in europe with 300 000 people so it was very important and so they employ some

00:06:07.680 slaves and they made this channel here you could see it started at the top of the roads

00:06:14.080 it's in some point it's more than one meter deep so as the water was running in the rain it was

00:06:19.600 always going in this channel and to avoid that the road will be washed away so over thousands of years

00:06:25.920 of carts you could see here you could see the truck of the carts destroying the limestone

00:06:32.380 and the lowering down the road so now the roads is lower than the channel that's why i have to

00:06:37.380 do the bumps so i'm really sorry for that so the house used to have you could see from here really

00:06:44.520 well and we have another house there and i haven't yet restored um and yet the tree of eight years

00:06:52.060 all three in the middle of the kitchen when we're going to be cooking together. And now we've been

00:06:57.540 living here for 11 years. I took us, we restored me and Jesse the farm and it took us three years

00:07:03.980 to move in. Walking the farm with Carlo, I was struck by how closely he paid attention to the

00:07:14.140 landscape, the path of the water after a storm, the history held in an old road, the ways previous

00:07:21.560 generations had worked with the land. As we continued through the property, I began to hear

00:07:27.400 something similar in Jesse's relationship to the garden. So Jean-Paul Fortier, and he learned a lot

00:07:34.460 from traditional French market gardening. And then he worked all over the States and the Americas,

00:07:41.260 but also in Cuba. And in Cuba, they didn't have access to a lot of fossil fuels. And so this

00:07:48.700 technique developed with using sort of raised beds and um small small tractors and also planting

00:07:56.640 very very densely so basically you're just limiting by the just having the canopy of the

00:08:01.860 plants you're limiting the amount of weeds that are growing up and for me this is really interesting

00:08:05.480 because my both my grandmothers are immigrants into the uk so my dad's mom is from ireland and

00:08:12.000 i think that's where the digging passion comes from and um they were market gardeners and they

00:08:17.800 also had this same way of growing very very densely and they um believed that they actually

00:08:22.960 were just french huguenot descents and so these lineages of techniques and ways of growing are

00:08:29.560 sort of passed down here like i've really paid a lot of attention to the gardens i see around me

00:08:34.540 so the old people that i who have gardens that are flourishing i'm always asking them oh when

00:08:38.680 do you plant and and um and they guide me with the calendar of the saints so here the agricultural

00:08:45.060 calendar is linked to the saint's days and they say oh you plant this on the on the day of sun

00:08:49.900 san martin or san paulo and the saint's days correlate to the to the patterns of the weather

00:08:56.500 and um yeah it's just really i love just like learning from this world that's around us and

00:09:03.060 everybody has their own style when they're gardening as well and that act of cooking

00:09:06.900 together is where really the recipes get shared down because i grew up in a place where we always

00:09:11.840 had many people coming and staying and cooked with the food from the garden but when we had

00:09:17.560 guests coming to stay me and my mom and my sisters and my dad would bring the vegetables but we'd all

00:09:22.560 cook and prepare everything first and Carlo saw this when we first met and he was like what are

00:09:27.480 you doing and I and then he was like no wait for everybody to arrive and then we cooked together

00:09:32.620 and at first I found it a bit nerve wracking you know a bit ah and then instead I saw how Carlo

00:09:39.080 with his friends with everybody everybody arrives you have the ingredients people bring different

00:09:44.600 ingredients and you sit down and you decide what you're going to eat and in that way it's a it's

00:09:49.400 just a natural way to learn the quantity you visually see and feel the quantities of the of

00:09:54.600 the recipes and and um the yeah everybody then like young 20 year old men talking about you know

00:10:02.040 as they eat is the whole discussion is about the food

00:10:05.060 there's a point in a conversation where people stop performing usually it happens later after

00:10:19.380 the walk after the meal after you've circled the same subject enough times that the polished

00:10:25.360 answer falls away you hear it in this series that authentic human relatability and that way

00:10:34.020 of working has become central to what we do at For the Wild. Through the studio, we create long-form

00:10:39.560 audio and narrative projects with organizations, brands, and initiatives who care about depth,

00:10:45.420 place, and stories that stay with people long after they're heard. If you're building something

00:10:50.320 that wants that kind of care, reach out to us at connectatforthewild.world.

00:11:04.020 Later that evening, we gathered around the table.

00:11:12.260 Throughout our time together,

00:11:13.680 Carlo returned again to the importance of shared meals.

00:11:17.440 In his family, the table held stories, traditions, celebrations,

00:11:22.900 and difficult conversations alike.

00:11:25.760 As the food arrived, he began telling us about the role it played in his childhood.

00:11:30.020 the table for ensemble was considered the temple of the house

00:11:37.060 in the table you know we share the best food the best cakes but also the most important discussion

00:11:47.360 you know up on the table so the table all the family together is the temple of the house

00:11:52.180 and when the wine land in the table the ceremony starts and so traditionally what they say is that

00:11:59.660 whenever we drink wine, we need to give something to the wine. Usually it's a toast, a poem or a song.

00:12:15.980 If you don't drink wine, if you don't toast and you drink wine without toasting, the table will

00:12:21.300 see you and it will declare you to the table. He just drank without toasting.

00:12:29.660 And so in that moment, the table decided a little things to do for us,

00:12:34.300 a singer song, a poet, or a toast.

00:12:38.960 Usually the traditional one.

00:12:40.280 And then if you become, you know, if you do more mistakes,

00:12:42.700 they will start to ask you different ones, like take off your shirt,

00:12:46.060 take off your, so you end up in your, I remember young uncles,

00:12:49.960 you know, start to drink at 17, 18, they remain on their pants.

00:12:53.420 Their pants, never.

00:12:54.060 and so this um this uh way of being at the table was kind of guided by the the the head of the

00:13:03.840 table which is the grandfather and the grandmother and he was looking after the three main toast

00:13:10.960 so the idea is there are main traditional toast they are done by the host and then there are

00:13:17.460 other toasts are done by everybody these toasts are done by the host only the toast usually does

00:13:22.300 them and everybody knows them so nobody will ever do it um so i i will look after this toast today

00:13:29.000 because um the grandfather said that to become a toast master you need to have a few things you

00:13:33.900 need to have a good wife they run a kitchen they can cook and you need to have a barrel full of

00:13:40.920 wine if you don't have a barrel and you start the toast inside and the wine finish it's finished for

00:13:45.440 you you need to have always wine for everybody and then you have to have children so the idea

00:13:51.760 if you can look after the table of a family you can look after a table of everybody um so and i

00:13:59.260 funny enough you know when i was young my grandfather always put me wine when i was young

00:14:04.060 and my mother smug him you know like you know don't give wine to my kids and he's a toast

00:14:09.540 master can you see it and so actually funny enough in all the grandchildren i'm the only one he had

00:14:17.120 12-grade children, I think, I am the only one who had kids, so he saw something, and

00:14:23.360 so the most, so far, yes, absolutely, and I hope somebody will do them, yeah, just to

00:14:29.940 have the memory of cousins, and so the meals that we remember most, the meals we always

00:14:36.480 really, you know, because we do this a lot, is the meals where everybody toasts and, you

00:14:43.520 know bring something to this table so also lifting the glass uh it's a like a stick of words so when

00:14:50.980 you lift the glass and you call a toast usually the table need to go silent so if somebody call

00:14:56.300 a toast so it's amazing because to drink even a little sip you need to have a toast so it's about

00:15:03.020 be in the present grandmother said this is not a game to get drunk she used to do 20 70 toast with

00:15:10.480 one glass of wine because you can sip also you don't need to swallow down so the idea is this

00:15:17.080 game is teach you to be in the present with the wine and actually they told you that the wine is

00:15:22.700 teaching you that when you're drunk or when you're sad you're drunk of sadness or you're drunk of

00:15:27.380 happiness you always have to stay in the present because that's when things can happen if you're

00:15:31.660 not present so i remember that um when i was 17 i started to kind of understand what's happening

00:15:38.620 at the table and i asked to my grandfather why these three main toasts they're always the same

00:15:44.500 you know the first the second toast these three main toast they come at different moment of the

00:15:49.400 meal where different dishes come at the table and as soon as for example the meat comes the second

00:15:54.820 toast is called why they're always the same and he looked me at least i serious like this

00:15:59.100 they are the same so you can remember them

00:16:01.460 it's amazing old wisdom right

00:16:06.400 so i i will not be able to do the sucked words translation but i the meaning is the same so

00:16:14.080 he will start the first toast with lifting the glass to give thanks to this possibility that

00:16:20.440 we have today to feel so healthy to have so much health that allowed us to get up from our bed and

00:16:26.520 you know take the courage to come to to this unknown day with us and to give thanks to this

00:16:33.100 health um and also to this first toast we usually send good health to the people that need today

00:16:40.620 good health so if your family you have somebody that need good health it's a moment that we send

00:16:45.080 good health and always praying for the good health for our environment our land and our rivers

00:16:50.880 because that's where our food come from and that's where we come from and good health in italian it's

00:16:56.620 salute, so salute.

00:16:58.940 And salute to our Aningos.

00:17:02.540 Thank you, Desi.

00:17:06.720 Salute.

00:17:07.600 Salute.

00:17:08.660 Salute.

00:17:09.400 Salute.

00:17:10.240 Salute.

00:17:11.660 Salute.

00:17:13.080 Salute.

00:17:15.040 Salute.

00:17:16.160 Salute.

00:17:17.520 Salute, get better.

00:17:18.580 listening to carlo describe the toast passed down through his family i found myself thinking about

00:17:31.120 the many ways people inherit a relationship with place their stories their recipes through

00:17:38.300 practices repeated often enough to become part of daily life while i was in tuscany visiting

00:17:44.980 ariana she used a phrase that stayed with me reading the grapes i asked her what she meant

00:17:51.900 if you could like tell us a story and walk us through you're looking at the grapes and you say

00:17:58.340 okay this is what i'm reading and i like an example three of this year is well this year

00:18:05.440 would know this year i'm not gonna do that this year what what if your what are your favorite

00:18:10.200 You know, certain vineyards have certain soils.

00:18:14.820 So you're kind of preconditioned by the history of the vineyard.

00:18:19.200 You go through the vineyard and say, wow, those grapes are amazing.

00:18:22.340 And I say, okay, with these grapes, I would love to do this kind of wine.

00:18:28.280 Let's say Treborri, which is our selection.

00:18:31.080 So therefore, I'm going to harvest with, use some whole bunch, some whole berry,

00:18:37.100 and I'm going to harvest it in the wood.

00:18:38.980 and I'm going to leave it, the skin's in contour for a longer time

00:18:43.020 and then I can leave it aged for this amount of time

00:18:47.760 and this type of wood and this amount of time

00:18:49.800 and this other type of wood.

00:18:51.580 It's like cooking.

00:18:54.100 And because when you're reading the grapes,

00:18:55.800 you have a sense of how they can express themselves

00:19:01.700 when you're, like whether you're looking for different flavors or profiles.

00:19:07.420 Yes, but you can't only look at the grapes, you have to look at the whole history of the vineyard, the age of the vineyard.

00:19:15.400 You have to look also at previous vintages of what you've achieved with that vineyard, that plot, because it depends a lot on the soil.

00:19:23.960 And also on how the season went from budding, let's say from March until the harvest.

00:19:30.280 How was the season? How is that vineyard placed in relation to the sun?

00:19:35.980 how much sun will I have gotten what do I what will I expect to take out of it and so there's

00:19:43.140 so many factors that go into it and you try and and give your version of what the grapes are going

00:19:50.260 to be and with experience you get a bit better but it's always you know it's a lot in this nature's

00:19:58.040 hands it depends also you know I might have a flavor I might have my taste tells me that but

00:20:04.760 But then, you know, wine is also so personal in many ways.

00:20:09.660 So I might have a vision, but then maybe someone else has a completely different vision.

00:20:16.040 You have to believe in your vision.

00:20:17.880 You have to believe, otherwise you get confused.

00:20:20.540 Then you make a mess.

00:20:22.300 I could see how you're never bored.

00:20:25.280 No, never, ever.

00:20:26.860 we began the first episode of found the land with carlo and jesse at their farm in sicily

00:20:36.060 it feels fitting to return there now i like to propose a toast i like to propose a toast to

00:20:45.220 to the garden to this beautiful planet there is a garden full of foods and to the gardener

00:20:52.720 You know, because some people have gardens, some people don't.

00:20:56.400 But they need to have a garden.

00:20:57.740 Because grandfather used to say, we are all a gardener walk.

00:21:00.680 So I like to give thanks to the gardener and the gardener.

00:21:04.160 Thank you.

00:21:04.760 The gardener and the gardener.

00:21:08.440 Salud.

00:21:09.540 People understand.

00:21:11.880 So it's a song about peace.

00:21:14.520 And it goes like this.

00:21:17.440 It goes.

00:21:22.720 Que nos guíe en nuestro camino, que nos llevan a la conciencia y que se abra nuestro corazón.

00:21:34.040 Madre, llévame a la luz.

00:21:37.580 Padre, llévame al amor.

00:21:40.720 Madre, llévame a la luz.

00:21:44.720 Padre, llévame al amor.

00:21:46.720 La paz en todo el planeta, la paz.

00:21:52.720 La paz, la paz en todo el planeta.

00:22:05.260 There's a string here.

00:22:08.280 There's a string.

00:22:10.440 Yeah.

00:22:11.740 I like to do a toast to peace.

00:22:13.980 To this possibility that we choose to have inside ourselves.

00:22:20.800 and to the place where peace is really needed

00:22:26.720 inside ourself and also outside ourself.

00:22:29.780 That all the peace that we are gathering today

00:22:32.240 in this November day,

00:22:33.940 we can send it all this beautiful, peaceful moment,

00:22:36.880 we can send it in place where there is no peace today.

00:22:39.220 With one breath in and one breath out.

00:22:46.100 Specifically, I like to send breath to these people

00:22:49.120 that are in charge of our countries that if they can kind of remember that we are our brothers and

00:22:56.740 sisters and there is enough land for everybody and there is enough food and resources for everybody

00:23:04.020 and i remember my grandmother used to say the peace only come when people will start to cook

00:23:10.040 together and eat together in one long table and share recipes and learn recipes from different

00:23:16.480 tradition and here today we had we have many people coming from different parts of the world

00:23:20.700 we had all a generation in one table from grandparents to new mothers and children and so

00:23:28.860 to to really please we need peace

00:23:35.240 but it was a very important moment this moment because imagine when there was no radio no

00:23:44.380 television this is was the moment where the grandparents share stories songs and the children

00:23:51.300 are there eating and eating their knowledge so as you eat the food the toast the songs is food for

00:23:58.280 the soul so they said that this was what creates our beings the communal eating in a ceremonial way

00:24:08.100 because we can all eat and stay silent with our phone like in the tubes but you know it's another

00:24:13.860 thing to go there, you know, and participate.

00:24:23.560 People were still singing when we gathered our things.

00:24:27.020 The evening continued behind us as we walked away.

00:24:30.540 Over the course of this series, we spent time with farmers, gardeners, winemakers, cooks,

00:24:36.700 and families whose lives are deeply shaped by the place they call home.

00:24:41.380 They welcomed us into their lives and invited us to their tables.

00:24:45.580 They shared stories, traditions, questions.

00:24:50.640 Looking back, I think what I appreciate most is their generosity of making space for conversation.

00:24:57.200 For a series built around food, it feels fitting to end around a table,

00:25:02.020 surrounded by friends, sharing a meal, and singing into the night.

00:25:10.840 thank you for listening to this episode of for the wild series fat of the land we would like to

00:25:19.760 thank the sponsors of the series richie and tara elaya you can find more information about them

00:25:25.920 in our show notes as well as a special for the wild link to order yourself some richie

00:25:31.060 for the wild is produced by ayana young victoria fam erica ekram julia jackson and ori bittle

00:25:40.120 this series features music and sound design created by the for the wild studio

00:25:45.100 you can join us on patreon for exclusive fat of the land spotlight episodes spanning from

00:25:51.660 mateo a truffle hunter with his dog wendy through to a visit to a cheese cave there's so much more

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00:26:22.820 Thank you for being with us.

00:26:24.360 And as always,

00:26:25.200 thank you for listening.

00:26:26.260 Thank you.

00:26:39.480 There's a string here

For The Wild - June 04, 2026

FAT OF THE LAND - DOLCE on Family and Tradition S1：E5

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