Angela Padrona, now sixty-five, has lived near Monopoli in Apulia all her life. She grew up in a family of nine children—eight girls and one boy—and they all worked on their small plot of land all day long. They collected fava beans, peas, and whatever wild greens there were, and harvested grain with a scythe. They made pecorino, provolone, and mozzarella from sheep’s and cow’s milk. Theirs was a complete country life, entire in what they ate from their land over the arc of
