LILLINA

was born in 1935 at Vesime. She remembers that when she was ten, her mother produced goat cheese. They lived in the centre of the village and they owned two or three goats. She attended the school for a little time, because she spent most of her time sewing. The sewing lessons started at nine in the morning, so she had time to graze goats before. Since they hadn't got their own pasture lands, they graze the animals in an area near the Bormida river called "el gére".

Goats fed themselves with "guret"( wickers), wild aswellas domestic, but they preferred the domestic ones, because they had got larger and tastier. Goats also ate with pleasure the harder leaves, the youngest leaves of poplar and false-acacie.

Lillina's mother sent her to graze goats where these plants grew, but Lillina disobeyed and went to the football ground to play with her friends, so that goats ate dry bushes. The quantity of milk produced was lower than normal, because the food wasn't enough. For this the mother scould Lillina.

At nine in the morning, Lillina and the other children came back from the pasture. They must pay attention that goats didn't drink while they where grazing, because their parents thought that animals must do it only at home, where it was given to them a drink called "bruveiròn": made up of water and bran (in some periods of the year it was added also a "lapazòt" infusion). The "lapazot" are shrubs with very large leaves, that didn't make the milk too strong, they were picked up during the pasture.

In the afternoon a faggot was made for the feeding of rabbits and goats, made up of branches, bushes and "guret". The places where the faggots were made, were small "island" in the middle of the river. To reach them you must cross the river stepping on stones, but many goats were frightened by the water.

During the winter Lillina's mother gave the goats the hay that she had picked up in summer with a sickle, finding it at the end of meadows and banks and carrying it on the shoulders on a kind of "sheet" tied at the four corners.

The "bergerìa" was an agreement that consisted in giving the goats to breeders owing a male goat, for a period of ten-twenty days in September. In this period the person who got the goats assured their fecundation. The milk produced in this period was tastier and denser; cheese was better too.Breeders owing a male goat were also paid a particular price.

The only works of Lillina's mother were the goats and houseworks. Her family sold cheese and milk (these in particular to the nuns of the nursery school). The milk just milked was put in a enameled pot with a lid, that was kept in a "moschera" (a small cupboard, with a close net that didn't permite insects, in particular flies, to enter and have a contact with the food) in the coldest and darkest room of the house.

To make cheese was used the milk that had not been sold. The curd milk was poured in to the "frascele" (pierced small baskets) in which had been previansly put a white, clean, square lenght of linen. After the dripping, the remnant was poured into a dish and in same cases, it was left to dry on the straw. The straw was taken from the middle of bale ("balot"), because it was the cleanest. The cheese was left to dry also in small hanging boxes, where it was turned, washed and salted.

Lillina met her father when she was ten, because before he was a soldier in the war. Before leaving he was a farm hand, at his return he rented a field in which he sowed alfalfa for feeding rabbits and goats. Also he helped the other farmers and was paid with hay for the winter.

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of the contents of this page are taken or inspired by the book: "VERSO I CRU DEL ROCCAVERANO, GAL BORBA 2 LEADER".