Pani Caliatu.

I have just received the bible of Aeolian cooking and customs. I have been trying to collect the recipes from family. I still want to do that because we invariably have variations from the norm. I have seen many already, though my collection is not yet very large. I ordered this book at BarnesandNoble.com . It was less than $20.00 and arrived in perhaps 4 days. What a deal. it has lots of colored pictures and has mountains of information about language, products, traditions and food. The author is at least a part time resident of Salina, so that hits us pretty close to home.
The ISBN Number is: 88-900873-0-7. The authors are: Susan Lord and Danilo Baroncini. Don't think this excuses you for a minute from sending recipes, but do try to get a copy. I know you will enjoy it.

The funniest thing just happened. I was reading this great book and found in it a soup that was remarkably similar to one that my family has been doing for years. Basically ours just has coarsely crushed canned tomato, water, cubes of potato and broken spaghetti in it. The aeolian one has a more complicated recipe which I will not publish as I do not think the publishers would like it. I called my sister to read it to her. She was amazed that it was so close. Now here comes the funny part. You knew it would come eventually right? She said, "I have to tell you something". "Mom got that recipe from Dot Campbell in Littleton."
Dot is about the most un-Italian person you could ever imagine and was born in New Brunswick, Canada. She knew Mom when we had barely a penny to our collective name in northern Maine. Dot ran the kitchen in her family farm where she knew how to feed a crowd including hungry farm hands on very little. The perfect relationship for my mother. OK so it was not perhaps the funniest thing ever, but it was a bit strange.
A clash of cultures....