Baskets for Heaven 

Sheep herding and cheese making has been part of life in Sicily for centuries. The baskets pictured were used for making, molding, and aging sheep milk cheeses such as pecorino, primo sale, and ricotta before modern health codes required plastic imitations to be adopted. 

Chestnuts… in an Open Basket

These two figurines from Palermo’s Museo Etnografico Giuseppe Pitrè are carrying traditional baskets filled with foodstuffs. The woman carries eggs, and the man, it’s hard to say. I’m going to venture to guess that perhaps he’s carrying chestnuts or “castagne.” This is the season for harvesting chestnuts–and like the olive festivals also celebrated in November,…

Now I’m Thirsty

In a post from earlier this year, I told you about how in Palermo, a vendor called “l’acquaiolo” roamed the streets with his jug of water along with a bench that was specially designed to hold glasses. Now that it’s summer, I thought I’d remind you that before bottled water, l’acquaiolo came to the rescue…