May 22 Part 2 The Silkworm

The next part of our day was spent with Miriam at their silk farm coop.  We first met at the silk museum, where we saw a little bit about the silkworm, an  example of an old silk dress worn by the villagers on their wedding day (they shared a wedding dress) and a loom, which I tried my hand at operating.

That was fun!

Then we went to the beverage shop which is in the same building as the museum and had a cold coffee drink (brasilena) popular in San Floro.  And then we drove to the coop itself to meet the silkworms. The whole experience was so visceral (is that the right word?  I'll look it up), it touched us to the core so that it is difficult to write about.

This ancient industry of silk production, which was once so central to Cantanzaro, has been revived by these three young people with heart and passion.  We only met Miriam, not the other two, but she is full of life and energy.  If you want to see her and learn more about them, you can google nido di seta (basically the silk nest).  Mostly I found things in Italian, but you can see their energy and some of the production even if you can't understand it all.

 The silkworm, upon hatching, is about 1/8th of an inch and can only feed on mulberry leaves. The larval stage lasts for about 27 days and the silkworm goes through five growth stages called instars, during this time.  They feed continuously and grow to an amazing proportion of their initial size. They then spin a cocoon which contains a silk thread about a mile long. The cocoons are put in boiling water where the "glue" (sericin) that holds them together is released (my poor attempt to explain) and then you beginning unraveling the raw silk.

These photos are from the Silk coop.

Small

Larger

Cocoon

Cocoons are put inside the little boxes of these "cages"?  

The co-op has a small shop where they sell some of their handmade items so I bought a scarf and some earrings (thank you Mona and Karl) which I'll show you when I get home.

Nido de Seta is offering educational workshops for people to learn this ancient art and actually some folks from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York are coming to participate later this summer.

We had such a beautiful time.  It was just Patty, Domenico, Miriam and I "off the grid" literally.

On the way home, I noticed we were taking twists and turns, and I said, "Domenico, you are trying to find that vista point aren't you?!"  He said, yes I think it's just up here."  I said, "Brother, you are like a dog on a bone!" And he said "That is Calabrese."  At that moment, my heritage was confirmed.  My kids say, "Mom, we know what you're like when you're 'on point.'" Domenico was on point, and he did find us our spot.  I took a video but somehow it came out sideways.  I'm sure there's some trick to that.

After we came home from our big day of tours, we went out to eat on the square in Pizzo again.  This restaurant was recommended to us by Vincenza at the Piccolo Hotel.  She said they served hamburgers and when Patty's eyes lit up, she said, "Well they may not be what you're used to." I think it was Il Brigantino. Our waiter was happy to ply us with drinks (only 2 :)) and we had a grand time.  The waitress had studied English and was very fun.  Patty ordered a hamburger and it was a hamburger patty and a fried egg over easy but no bread.  I ordered a salad. 

After we ate, the waitress asked if she could bring us a limoncello that her husband had made, and we were like "Sure," thinking it was like a lemon pound cake or something. Hmm

Let me introduce you to limoncello!

One part of Pizzo I may not have mentioned yet is all the churches (RC) that are here.  And they play their bells on the hour (we think).  They ring a lot and quite enthusiastically.  When we arrived home on Wednesday, we saw a lot of little girls dressed up like nuns and wondered what that was.  We asked the waitress at our restaurant and she said it was the feast of St. Rita's.   OK, hold that thought.


After we left the restaurant we were looking at clothes at the dress shop next door.  The owner came up to me and told me the bikini on display was just right for me.  As I was pondering how to respond to that, Patty said, "Look!" And down the street came a processional for St. Rita.  A bunch of little girls dressed in these nun costumes and a priest and women bearing a statue of St. Rita and the priest chanting something like "St. Rita pray for the town," and the people responded "Pray for us."  And so on but in Italian.

After the procession went by, we went back to shopping, but Patty actually bought a shirt (but I really wanted it!).  She graciously gave it to me. It's really cool. It will show up later.  (I was pretty unhappy with some of the clothes I brought from home so I really wanted to look nice when we went to Scilla.  That's why I like this shirt because it was sparkly and had a fun saying on it like Patty's always do.)

And after stopping for our nightly gelato, we went home and I think this night we were able to sleep.