For The Wild - FAT OF THE LAND - SECONDI on Women, Food and Resistance S1：E3

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

00:00:09.960 Fat of the Land. Before we begin, I'm just going to put the kettle on. And if you can,

00:00:15.440 I'd invite you to do the same. Make a cup of something warm, settle in a little. I've been

00:00:20.820 trying to start my days like this lately, just slowing things down enough to actually arrive.

00:00:26.500 Right now, I'm drinking Ritchie, which I'm honestly very grateful to have found.

00:00:31.180 I'm not someone who does well with coffee.

00:00:33.360 My friends and collaborators know this all too well.

00:00:36.640 But Ritchie was made from roasted chicory root and cacao and other delicious plants,

00:00:41.060 so it has that dark, full-bodied feeling, but lands a lot more gently.

00:00:46.580 It actually feels grounding, like it settles into my body instead of speeding me past it.

00:00:51.960 And it's become a bit of a ritual, just having something warm in my hands and taking a breath, giving myself a moment before moving into the day.

00:01:01.860 So wherever you are, if you can, take a sip with me.

00:01:05.740 If you're curious, you can learn more at drinkrichu.com.

00:01:09.520 And thank you to Richu for supporting this series.

00:01:11.620 we also want to thank heyday books for supporting this series and their new release

00:01:20.760 compassion in crisis a vibrant community textbook exploring how we care for one another through

00:01:26.680 overlapping environmental political and social crises filled with practical tools disaster

00:01:33.000 preparedness checklists somatic practices and heartfelt guidance the book is an invitation

00:01:39.060 into the lifelong work of mutual aid, resilience, and staying connected through difficult times.

00:01:45.080 You can learn more at heydaybooks.com.

00:01:50.040 We're also grateful to Terra Elia, a retreat space in southern Italy rooted in enchantment

00:01:55.680 and renewal and sacred transformation. It's the kind of place that invites you to step out of

00:02:01.060 urgency and into a different rhythm entirely. And in some ways, that question of rhythm,

00:02:07.920 of how we live how we spend our time it's what brought me here in the first place

00:02:13.840 i came to italy because i wanted to immerse myself in a certain kind of life

00:02:19.140 the one we imagine where food matters where meals take time where there's a sense of continuity

00:02:26.020 between land and people a life that feels well lived and i was curious about what would happen

00:02:32.460 if I followed that desire all the way through, whether it would actually satisfy something

00:02:37.120 or just sharpen the appetite.

00:02:46.680 This week, I found myself thinking a lot about women's work, the kinds of labor that become

00:02:52.380 so woven into daily life, they almost disappear from view, feeding people, keeping rituals

00:02:58.620 alive remembering how something is made passing knowledge through repetition and touch so much of

00:03:06.380 what we inherit around food and tradition moves through women and so much of it can vanish quietly

00:03:12.220 when those practices are no longer shared i went back out walking with jesse

00:03:17.020 and our conversation moved quickly into stories of resistance, survival and care.

00:03:30.460 A very wonderful local character told me this story. We were walking here and he

00:03:36.620 he said that the story goes is that the that the the city was under siege and months had passed

00:03:45.180 and people were really you know struggling and when there's a siege there's a siege on both sides

00:03:50.720 so it's like a it's like a um a battle of of wills to see you know whether the siege or the

00:03:56.980 siege who can survive the longest and it's kind of like a hideout or what so basically it means

00:04:02.260 nobody can come in nobody can go out okay and usually and it's a way to sort of starve or they

00:04:08.480 cut off the water so then eventually they give up they could they could be dominated the invaders

00:04:13.760 can come in the women came together and they just they they decided that they would collect

00:04:20.740 their breast milk and they would use their breast milk to make to make ricotta but they made this

00:04:25.820 ricotta and they took it to the to the gate and they called the soldier on the other side and

00:04:32.120 they said you know take this to your to whoever your your leader is and give him this gift from

00:04:37.460 our city and um and the story goes that this like ricotta was taken and it was the best ricotta

00:04:45.020 that they'd ever eaten and they and they said after all this time if they're still able to

00:04:51.100 produce ricotta like this there's no hope and they went away oh and then later i've shared this story

00:04:57.680 with other people and they said no this is story there's also in carcassonne in france there's a

00:05:02.700 story that's similar and then some people said oh this is from the romans ah this is from you know

00:05:07.940 the medieval spanish times or whatever and yeah they managed to well done and maybe it was done

00:05:14.280 many times yeah exactly it was like a way right of doing it and sicily seems to be a place of

00:05:21.560 like light and dark like real extreme

00:05:24.140 so this is the carav tree i was wondering yeah this is another one of the evergreen trees that

00:05:34.080 grows like on very little soil it's one of the trees that we can plant onto the rock and it will

00:05:39.680 it will take hold and it's been so important for for creating food for the for the for the people

00:05:46.460 for the animals and um and also another connection little story is how that the um that you know

00:05:54.020 how 24 karat gold you know yeah the measurements of precious stones and and metals comes from the

00:06:01.760 seeds of the carob so the carob seeds no matter where they are they always have the same weight

00:06:07.540 of that i think it's some 0.02 grams and so they were used as a measuring tool

00:06:13.040 before meeting jesse i spent a couple days in catania with deborah we wandered through the

00:06:27.120 market together then back to the kitchen to make bread and pasta by hand as we cooked we talked

00:06:32.760 about sicily's layered food history arab influence migration occupation regional differences but we

00:06:40.560 also returned to something much more intimate, her mother, and the ways that love gets communicated

00:06:46.300 through food.

00:06:51.780 So you were talking a bit about how the food is a living history of the region or of the

00:06:59.860 country.

00:07:00.840 I don't know if you could tell us a story about that.

00:07:03.640 Yeah.

00:07:03.800 Tell us something about it.

00:07:04.900 For example, in Sicily, we have some ingredients that were introduced from the Arabian, for

00:07:18.780 example, dry fruit, like pistachios were rolled down.

00:07:24.460 And some very famous dishes like our most famous dessert, cassata, comes from an Arabian

00:07:32.840 dessert.

00:07:34.160 name originally was cassat, an Arabian word. Western Sicily, for example, they do completely

00:07:43.280 different dishes like couscous. That is from them because they're being occupied longer

00:07:51.120 the west side of the island. So couscous is really common on that side. And also a lot of

00:07:59.120 of North African, typically North African spices like cumin, saffron, cardamom that they use much

00:08:08.220 more than us. We use a lot of fresh herbs as you saw in the market, but we don't use so many spices

00:08:17.920 like them. It's interesting thinking about women and cooking and the feminist movement or the

00:08:25.400 movement away from the home the idea of freedom and independence and thinking that domestic work

00:08:33.240 is lesser or exhausting and it takes a woman away from what she really wants to do and yeah

00:08:39.580 I don't think a woman should stay home and cook and clean all day of course but I I wonder what

00:08:45.820 the middle ground is though because I don't know if freedom is making potato flakes either

00:08:51.140 of course it says it's a really interesting conversation to have with other women because

00:08:58.440 traditional foods is a it's a very deep connection it's almost a spirituality with where you're this

00:09:05.280 is yes this is what we still think about sharing meals what we mainly do every day this is what

00:09:16.680 happen today with friends or someone who take care about. So when we want to demonstrate and show up

00:09:31.800 our feelings, emotional, to our beloved, cuisine is one of the main ways. I think it's the main

00:09:41.460 for my mom so my mom cannot show shows up her feeling in any any way about cooking

00:09:51.140 that conversation stayed with me because i feel the tension around women's roles all the time

00:10:03.240 i'm deeply drawn to slow cooking to feeding people to subsistence to the intimacy of making

00:10:09.520 something with your hands. I understand why those traditions continue to matter so deeply to people

00:10:15.280 and I also think many women are still carrying the weight of expectations that have existed

00:10:21.060 for generations. I find myself wondering what care can look like now. What kinds of labor feel

00:10:27.860 life-giving? What kinds feel extractive? How we create relationships where care moves in multiple

00:10:34.960 directions instead of settling onto one person alone. There's so much beauty in feeding people

00:10:40.900 and there's also exhaustion, resentment, devotion, pleasure, obligation. Most of us

00:10:49.620 are still trying to understand how all of those things exist at once.

00:10:53.160 i've been thinking a lot while making this series about how long things actually take

00:11:06.600 and i'm not referring to just growing food or learning a place but building trust staying in

00:11:13.420 conversation letting something unfold instead of rushing it into a conclusion most of what you're

00:11:20.600 hearing in this series didn't come from a single interview. It came from time spent walking and

00:11:25.760 returning and asking the same question in different ways and being willing to sit inside the parts

00:11:31.700 that don't resolve quickly. And that's also how we approach the work for the wild more broadly.

00:11:38.220 Over the years, we've started to move away from one-off conversations and towards longer,

00:11:43.180 more intentional storytelling. Projects that are built in collaboration over time and with the

00:11:49.440 people and places they're actually about. That's what the studio side of the work is.

00:11:55.320 We partner with organizations, brands, and initiatives who want to tell more complex

00:12:00.020 stories, and we build those stories together. If you're working on something like that,

00:12:05.720 something that asks for depth, nuance, and care in how it's told, email us at connect

00:12:12.700 if for the wild, the world. And now back to it.

00:12:20.180 Later, back on the walk with Jesse, our conversation widened again. We spoke about

00:12:25.340 motherhood, female deities, Christianity, repression, inheritance, how ideas around

00:12:32.500 womanhood move through generations and settle into everyday life. What stayed with me was how

00:12:37.860 unfinished the conversation felt. Neither of us trying to arrive at a clean conclusion. Just

00:12:43.760 two women trying to understand what it means to care deeply for others while still staying

00:12:49.440 connected to ourselves. And trying to understand what we carry forward, what we release, and

00:12:56.240 what kinds of lives we're still learning how to imagine.

00:12:59.340 oh a story is coming to me oh can i share i met carlo walking the camino de santiago

00:13:08.660 and have always i've always walked and before i came here as i said i dreamt about this land

00:13:16.440 and and i also i've had a real sense that i've been here in a previous life and that i walked

00:13:26.140 here and that i was not from here but i i i was coming here and wherever i yeah and and it's like

00:13:33.860 a return to to to this place and for whatever reason but this has nourished me whilst i've been

00:13:40.280 here this time i've noticed in the restaurants not just here but from the north down i think

00:13:52.800 there's like this romanticized story of Italian food and it's not to say that the romantic food

00:14:03.700 isn't here but I it's not as easy to find as I thought it would be and I was speaking with a

00:14:10.440 woman in Catania and she was saying that how her generation and she was probably in her early 50s

00:14:18.720 and her mother's generation had really lost connection with food because of the the modern

00:14:27.160 woman movement yes and you know freezer food and quick and don't spend time in the kitchen because

00:14:33.560 that's of the past and i wonder what your experience of that is in italy because i i've

00:14:39.860 been a bit surprised and like where is this italian food that is completely overtaken the

00:14:47.240 media you know mainstream stories are of italian food and also a huge part of tourism here and

00:14:53.720 maybe i'm just not looking in the right places no i think you've picked up on something that

00:14:58.540 for me from from the outside seems really apparent is that there's a whole generation

00:15:04.060 of women who probably rightly so had to really fight against the role that they were put into

00:15:10.900 and um you know sort of a woman's place is is silent is in the house the kitchen you know um

00:15:21.280 is is to you know look after you to be the mother and to cook and to provide

00:15:26.860 and I think there was a whole generation of women who who just put their foots down and just refused

00:15:33.980 but with that i really see oh there's a real loss of knowledge and um and it's very apparent so even

00:15:42.260 in the schools and it's the grandmothers who bring the tradition because there are for every

00:15:49.160 saints day every celebration of the every passage of the seasons there's like a particular there

00:15:55.020 are particular dishes that are made and what i noticed in the villages was that the mothers

00:16:00.420 didn't know how to make these and even and it was either the grandmothers or the great-grandmothers

00:16:05.880 who were the ones who could still remember how to make these particular dishes and and then I think

00:16:14.140 there's also there has been a real stigma around you I see the older generations still buy and

00:16:21.520 collect the plants the greens they they they will go out foraging or from the vegetable sellers they

00:16:28.360 will buy you know the tenorumi the the leafy greens and plants but this is sort of seen it

00:16:34.960 seems to be portrayed as like the the food of the poor people and um in the restaurants people

00:16:41.340 you know the food of the of the celebration is the meat and the fried and the and and the

00:16:47.900 the the the pastas and but the the real everyday daily food seems to have been sort of put to the

00:16:57.760 side as though that's you know we don't need to eat this anymore and then i i have come across

00:17:02.140 some families where the traditions continue and within the home the food is just incredible

00:17:08.040 but when guests come then it's more it's sort of like okay we need to cook a particular type

00:17:14.760 of food in order to satisfy the idea of what people think of italian food i think there has

00:17:20.880 been changes happening and sort of almost as though like we need to feed the tourists what

00:17:27.640 they yeah and i could imagine that the tourist industry of italy is a huge part of the gdp of

00:17:34.220 the country and so if the tourist industry industry thinks oh tourist wants these foods

00:17:41.120 and we need to do it fast and cheap and not soulless but it's not coming from the spirit

00:17:49.200 And you can see this happening, so you can see, for example, in Siracusa, my mother-in-law, she would go always to the market in Ortizia, which is the old part of the city that has just been totally renovated through tourism.

00:18:11.400 But the market was still very much alive.

00:18:13.840 this episode is supported by heyday books and compassion in crisis a vibrant community

00:18:23.620 textbook filled with practical tools disaster checklists somatic practices and heartfelt

00:18:29.160 guidance for navigating a world shaped by overlapping crises the book asks what compassion

00:18:35.000 looks like as a lived practice how we care for one another through instability grief and

00:18:40.340 uncertainty. That question felt close to this episode for me, to the labor of feeding people,

00:18:46.340 to the invisible work that keeps families and communities alive.

00:18:50.280 You can find compassion in crisis through Hay Day books.

00:18:56.520 There is such an ancient history of the women being oppressed and being put in a role and

00:19:05.140 not having a voice. And also you see it almost religiously. So, you know,

00:19:10.340 At the top of this plateau there's a town which is called Palazolu Akredin and there was a temple there to a mother goddess who was known as Cibella and she was like the protector of the city and it was the biggest temple or priestesshood and in the Mediterranean tradition came more from Anatolia for Turkey.

00:19:35.680 She was the mother goddess. And on the site of this city, the Greeks arrived and they made an inland colony, which was, they had temples to Aphrodite, to the female goddesses at this peak.

00:19:51.060 and they made a theatre that looked out towards Etna

00:19:54.900 and it was called the Theatre of the Sky

00:19:56.560 and then at some point Christianity, so St. Paul, he arrived

00:20:03.560 and these female deities got pushed to the side

00:20:08.820 the figureheads are St. Paul with his spade

00:20:11.400 and San Sebastiano with his arrows

00:20:14.300 and I feel this impression of the female voice

00:20:18.400 and I feel also that this like resistant recent reaction of these of a previous generation of

00:20:27.740 women is so important to make the change and yet at the same time to not lose what's really you

00:20:36.180 know good and nourishing and needed and you know that connection with the lands but to be here and

00:20:42.040 and working in the local museum and there are you know people who've really dedicated their lives to

00:20:48.040 recording the medicines and the songs and the and the recipe we're gonna have these old these

00:20:54.200 older women going jessie you need to learn this you need to share this with your guests who come

00:20:58.220 to your house and you know there's these plants that you collect only in the you know in the week

00:21:03.840 before and before easter as a way to cleanse the liver and and there seems to be it is in time to

00:21:11.440 to collect these things and there is an understanding of the importance and there are a few

00:21:15.980 figures who are in the local community who really are writing that they're writing books about the

00:21:22.640 wild plants and the recipes to eat you then and it's so it feels like okay not all is lost yeah

00:21:28.500 i i have mixed feelings about the woman's role to say it lightly there's part of me that craves

00:21:36.720 the tradition and the foods and the slow cooking and somebody to make the delicious things. And

00:21:46.780 it takes time, takes time to grow and to process and to cook. It takes time to chop and to stew

00:21:52.780 and to make the oils. I mean, everything it's, it's a labor of love and spirituality. And I

00:21:59.440 feel so connected to that as somebody who strives for a subsistence lifestyle and at the same time

00:22:07.580 if I was in a different time or was in a different position in my life where I was

00:22:16.020 forced into a role like I would absolutely despise having to do that in a forced restricted way

00:22:24.880 and and yes I think women can be caretakers naturally and some women are and some women

00:22:30.100 aren't and it's beautiful when a woman is in that role because she wants to be and somebody does

00:22:35.660 have to do it where I live is a bit more traditional minded like there are really

00:22:41.660 strong independent women but there is definitely a masculine and feminine energy it's not like I

00:22:47.960 don't live in a liberal city where there's just a lot of diversity of roles I think there are

00:22:54.960 people who really want that they want the traditional values they want the traditional

00:22:58.320 roles and I think there can be so much beauty to that but the reciprocity really has to be clear

00:23:04.040 and then you know you add on to that complexity like the role of the grandparent and my mom

00:23:09.540 is in the generation of grandparent in the position of grandparent that's like I want to

00:23:15.080 live my life. Now I'm retired and I want to do what I want to do. She wants her days for to be

00:23:21.160 hers. She doesn't want to take on the caretaker role. She doesn't want to wash the dishes. Even

00:23:26.520 when I was giving birth, didn't want to do that. And so, and then part of me goes, well, now it's

00:23:31.200 your turn. But then it's like, well, I don't even want to restrict her if that's not what she wants

00:23:35.160 to do. But then part of it is a selfishness that it's really hard for people at this point in the

00:23:41.500 rugged individualism capitalist self-serving culture to want to sacrifice oneself it's not

00:23:49.440 what many of us are raised or conditioned to want we don't see that as something to strive for

00:23:56.020 so it's all wacky you know it's just like oh what a mess what a mess we're in where our desires

00:24:03.460 don't match what we need and they don't fulfill us and we're not comforted by it anymore but like

00:24:10.240 we can point the finger that it should be this person it should be that person and then yeah we

00:24:14.720 lose so much like we lose spirit we lose connection to land we lose flavor we lose we lose health we

00:24:21.060 lose enjoyment so much of coming here was like okay maybe some people here have have it figured

00:24:27.700 out a bit more and then of course like some people do no doubt but then we're all in this

00:24:33.700 in a similar boat i mean i i am i think some of it comes down to the resources of energy that we

00:24:42.040 have when i gave birth i am ever since i was very young i was given by my fairy godmother a um

00:24:50.160 and uh and medicine cards you know animal medicine cards yeah and they've always been very concise in

00:24:58.720 their messages and i gave birth and i pulled the card and it was giveaway it was turkey and it was

00:25:05.460 there was a message of like okay in this moment there is a moment the self stepping back for the

00:25:11.800 first three years i realized as a mom the first three years was just i stepped back and really

00:25:17.880 surrender to this giving and that really helped me not that it was easy because i was always

00:25:24.000 such a a practical doer and also arriving in sicily and trying to you know we were building

00:25:33.820 a house and i had always been the more practical one in our relationship and suddenly in a culture

00:25:42.400 where as a woman that i wasn't my opinion wasn't considered and this in our relationship had never

00:25:49.200 been a parent before but coming to the culture where all the men around me would just not even

00:25:56.200 consider what I was saying and I was physically I couldn't move because I had I had a little baby

00:26:02.640 in my arms and I and I couldn't get up and and I and I would put her you know him on my back and

00:26:08.640 try and do as much but I just realized I just physically couldn't and then it was like okay

00:26:13.980 I'll have to step back and accept and just you know sort of put a lot of resistance in being

00:26:20.620 forced into that role but before Carlo and I we'd actually been trying for a baby for for many years

00:26:28.280 and um we had got to well I'd got to a point where I really thought okay I'm working with

00:26:36.600 the bees and this is all about pollination and creation of life but I'm probably not going to

00:26:41.580 become a mummy I'm not going to become a mother and and then to understand and process that and

00:26:49.620 accept that sort of sadness of not being able to be something that I really dreamt of being like

00:26:56.960 all my life but it hadn't you know been ready until that time and then and going okay well

00:27:03.700 what's my role going to be and like you were saying you know sort of thing of well we can

00:27:07.440 have everything and then suddenly go actually maybe this is not going to be something that

00:27:10.900 i'm going to have and then arriving in sicily becoming a mother and then experiencing then how

00:27:18.900 that i wasn't able to do what my role i'd always been able to to do and to give but having had that

00:27:26.120 those many years of not conceiving not not becoming a mother gave me message of just

00:27:34.820 okay this is going to pass to really surrender into that

00:27:38.860 i love sicily thinking about tradition differently tradition feels alive to me now

00:27:49.040 something people are continuously shaping as they move through economics migration

00:27:53.800 family desire and the realities of modern life there are ways of living many people long for now

00:28:01.760 slower rhythms closeness to land food and to one another and there are also difficult

00:28:08.380 histories woven through some of those ways of life. Next time we return to Carlo on the farm

00:28:16.120 in Sicily before traveling north to Tuscany to spend time with Ariana and her vineyard. Together

00:28:21.760 they guide us into the foods that accompany a meal, flavors shaped by landscape, and the memories

00:28:27.180 that continue to live inside what we grow, prepare, and pass on. Thank you for listening to this

00:28:36.560 episode of For the Wild's series, Fat of the Land. We would like to thank the sponsors of this series,

00:28:42.260 Ritu and Terelaia, and for this episode, Hay Day. You can find more information about them in our

00:28:48.240 show notes, as well as a special For the Wild link to order yourself some Ritu, and the pre-order

00:28:53.220 link to grab yourself a copy of Compassion in Crisis from Hay Day. For the Wild is produced

00:28:58.540 by Ayana Young, Victoria Pham, Erica Ekram, Julia Jackson, and Ori Bittle. This series features music

00:29:06.320 and sound design created by the for the wild studio as well as a track high hill by evelyn

00:29:11.980 francis you can join us on patreon for exclusive fat of the land spotlight episodes spanning from

00:29:18.420 mateo a truffle hunter with his dog wendy through to a visit to a cheese cave with francesco and

00:29:23.420 martina there's so much more of the fat of the land world to explore and you can join our community

00:29:28.560 to also access uncut conversations and our full archive and publishing library as for the wild

00:29:35.480 continues its transformation into the For The Wild studio, we invite you to stay close as we

00:29:40.160 explore new creative offerings and ways of listening together. To stay connected, follow

00:29:45.280 us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter for updates and upcoming releases. Thank you for

00:29:50.840 being with us, and as always, thank you for listening.

For The Wild - May 21, 2026

FAT OF THE LAND - SECONDI on Women, Food and Resistance S1：E3

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