I was at that point in my travels where my backpack was too heavy with things I didn’t need anymore – making me hunch over and clench my shoulders.
Napoli station was large and busy. I looked up at the timetable to find Rocco Ravindola and made my way to platform 9.
It was surprisingly quiet. Previous summer railing experiences had seen me pushed, shoved and gasping for air.
Curiously, I went to double-check the route on my phone. Then I remembered the conversation I’d had every time I handed over my ID at a guesthouse here.
“Ahhhh Di Iorio. You’re Italian.”
It was the first time in probably 20 years that someone had pronounced my name correctly.
“Yes yes… but I can’t speak it,” I’d reply immediately, before they’d try to talk to me in the language.
“Oh you must speak a little bit!
I’d cringe and cheekily say, “Ciao. It’s mostly all I know, I’m sorry!”
They’d laugh. “Where’s your family from?”
“Molise.”
The response was always the same. They’d smirk or laugh again, pursing their fingers and getting ready to shake them as Italians do, all the while saying, “It doesn’t exist.”
Through many interactions like this, I came to discover my family is from a place that is the butt of a nationwide joke.
*
Let me tell you, there’s almost nothing worse than not understanding a joke. So to get ahead, I did a quick online search.
Molise is the newest Italian region after splitting from Abruzzo in 1963.
It’s obscure, quirky, and there’s really not a lot going on there. So really – why would anyone want to acknowledge its existence?
*
It made sense, then, that only a few people were on the platform to travel somewhere that doesn’t exist.
A train, a bus and several hours of green hills later, we pulled into Campobasso in Molise.
Waiting at the station was a man with a stubbly beard and black-framed glasses. I pulled up a photo of my cousin I had saved on my phone, and looked between both men.
It was Francesco.
“We’re going to a party!” he announced, hugging me, introducing me to his friend and throwing my backpack off my shoulders and into his car.
Turns out I had arrived on Ferragosto – a nationwide public holiday with its origins in post-harvest feasting, resting and celebrating.
Cars lined the side of the road at a nearby park, spilling out from the gravel parking lot. Friends and families were clustered around the reserve eating cold and cured meats, cheeses, and melons, while sausages and steaks sizzled on grills.
As we walked down a leafy hill, I was greeted with many smiling faces but my gaze ended up landing on a piece of cheese hanging from a tree branch over an open flame.
Florence has the Statue of David; Pisa, the Leaning Tower; Rome, the Colosseum; Naples, Mt Vesuvius; Campobasso… caciocavallo.
In its literal sense, it means horse cheese.
Unfortunately it’s not made from the milk of a horse – instead the name comes from when the cheese was roped up and transported via horse back in the 19th Century.
Sure, it’s not the only Italian city to be known for its food – carbonara is strongly associated with Rome; Naples is legendary for fried cuoppo.
But those meals don’t make their way into souvenir shops in the form of trinkets and magnets as caciocavallo does.
The sea of picnickers gestured for me to come toward the bondaged cheese.
A fresh piece of crusty bread was cut, and once the bottom of the caciocavallo was all melty, it was sliced off, drizzled onto the bread and handed to me.
They all watched in suspense as I took my first bite. The crunchy bread, the hot gooey cheese, and being surrounded by many eager eyes made me smile and give a thumbs up. Everyone cheered.
The night consisted of cold Italian beers, more kinky cheese, and a lesson in Italian hand gestures.
Fuck you, delicious, what do you mean? can apparently all be communicated through some very simple signs, which I was very grateful for considering my embarrassing lack of Italian language knowledge.
After sunset, I was driven just outside the city to the home of my family.
A small older lady opened up the door to a pink-ish house and flicked on the lights.
It must be Pina.
I hugged her and she led me upstairs, where I was met by more cousins and my nonno’s brother, Biaginno.
The resemblance between the brothers was uncanny, and I suddenly missed home.
Photo albums were pulled out of storage and the night consisted of speaking into phones and translating family stories.
In the morning, Pina, who is married to Biaginno, sat me down with an espresso, fresh honey, a biscuit and uovo sbattuto (a concoction of raw egg and sugar) with a dash of cocoa powder.
“I used to make this for my boys growing up,” she told me in Italian.
Outside the balcony overlooked dry valleys as far as the eye could see. Across from their pink house, kilometres away, was another house Pina pointed at.
“Pasqualina.” The house of my Nonna.
My gaze lowered to where the valleys met, and where my grandparents in Australia started their love affair. I remember them telling me how they’d meet at the bottom of the valley where there was once a creek separating them.
*
The last night, we had a big family dinner to send me off.
Biaginno sat in the exact same spot my nonno does at our long dining table back home in Australia, holding the same carafe of homemade red vino to pour onto his spaghetti at dinner.
I laughed, shook my head in disbelief.
“You both do the same thing.”
He told me about the day my Nonno left for Australia. Biaginno was set to drive his older brother to the port in Naples to see him off, but his boss thought otherwise.
“Vaffanculo,” came Biaginno’s reply. Fuck you.
Biaginno walked out of his job and drove my nonno to Naples so he could board a ship to Fremantle, Western Australia. And the brothers said goodbye.
*
My bag was still heavy with things I didn’t need as I caught the bus back to Naples. But I did take home a very cheesy keyring to prove that Molise is a place that does actually exist, and is full of warm people.