ALESSANDRO THE GREATEST

This is Alessandro. He is what I would call a freelance agricultural worker. He prunes olive trees, clears terraces, builds wooden fences, chops and stacks wood and makes steps between the steep terraces with earth and log. He knows all the wild things that are edible, is a brilliant finder of porcini mushrooms, along with all of the other edible varieties of funghi. He is a natural environmentalist. But more than that, he is an extremely kind and generous person.

His appearance is rather gruff but this is because he is quite shy. I find his Italian a bit difficult to understand inasmuch as it is peppered with dialect words but also because I am not so clever in Italian, anyway. He looks after us and indeed, worries about us.

He is married and has two grown children who are, I gather, not as industrious as are he and his wife. His wife is a seamstress and also a cleaner but I know her only by telephone inasmuch as they live 30 miles away. She sends us a chestnut torta at Christmas and one of ricotta and lemon at Easter.

Alessandro and his brother cleared all of our terraces and planted them with young olive trees. Alessandro took great delight and pride in doing this. He owns very little land of his own so hates to see olive groves and vineyards fall into disuse. He is free to use our land by way of wild asparagus, mushrooms and wood plus the grapes from some very old vines. He makes wine from them and to be perfectly honest, it is none too good. He has, however, taught us how to cook country dishes not found in cookery books or on restaurant menus.

Recently he has had an operation to clean the blood vessels in his legs. This is the second time it has been done and this time the results are a bit iffy. His feet swell so he whips off his shoes before he gets into his car to drive home. He can only work part time now. We, and his other employers, are perfectly willing to go along with this but I, for one, am sorry to see him brought down. If he has to quit entirely, it will be a sad day for all of us. There will never be another Alessandro.

This is Alessandro's hand holding porcini found last autumn. PORCINI