Once upon a time

During the renovation of the family homes, dozens of binders containing photos, documents, and memories were roughly packed and moved.

One Sunday afternoon, after lunch, Graziano and his wife Maria, sitting on the living room floor surrounded by those boxes, were patiently sorting through photos and documents, one by one. It was then that Graziano came across a photograph: in the image, smiling and holding a bowl, was his grandmother. He immediately remembered that moment: he was about thirteen years old and still lived in Piazza al Serchio, a small village in the mountains of Lucca.

Like every summer Sunday morning, his grandfather would pick vegetables from the garden, and those that weren't used in the kitchen, his grandmother would preserve. She would roughly chop them, immerse them in a solution of vinegar, water, sugar, and spices, heat the jar in a double boiler, and put it in the pantry.

Graziano was crazy about that giardiniera, but he knew it was destined for winter, when fresh vegetables were no longer available. His grandmother, however, always set a little aside: she would hide it in the refrigerator in a small dish and secretly bring it to him. In that photo, taken by his father, his grandmother could be seen smiling with the freshly prepared plate of giardiniera in her hand, as she looked at little Graziano who, mouth watering, was anticipating that delicacy. He still dreamed of those flavors and sweet moments at night. It was there, sitting on the living room rug, that he decided to recreate that recipe.

In the following days, he tried and tried again, tasted dozens of variations, always with his eyes closed, certain that the right one would bring his childhood back to mind. Until one day he found it; that bite was the door that opened his mind to the world of memories. That recipe remained a secret for years. It was prepared in moments of happiness or despair to remember his origins and his grandmother.

Just like in a fairy tale, every bite took him back in time, to a moment when "Once upon a time..."