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of the alpine farmer. Opposite their home the family's cellar stored preserved meats,
cheese, vegetables and fioiit. They had a large vegetable garden next to their home
and, a short distance away, an orchard which was still bearing fi^it over one hundred
years later, Luisa Vanzetta cooked risotto and other meals using recipes handed dovm
by her mother while Ferdinando made up large batches of home-made sausages
(including the by then well-established bullboar), which were hug to dry in the cellar."
Osvaldo supplied their home-made wdne, he, no doubt, receiving other consumable
goods in exchange, (Osvaldo apparently had less difficulty farming his steep land in
Hepbum than he did preventing the local children from stealing his grapes; Leila
Gaggioni, and others like her, perhaps leamed some interesting Italian words as he
endeavoured to shoo them away!'*)
The Vanzettas were eager participants in many social occasions organised by
Italian speakers, especially the regular 'pot nights' held at the Rodoni (see following
section) and similar households. After helping to make bullboars, and bringing their
contributions of freshly made bread, the Vanzettas would enjoy a meal of freshly boUed
cudeghini, the sausage traditionally eaten in Ticino. In Australia considered inferior,"
these sausages were made from the scraps and gristle left over from the bullboars; the
variety of dialect terms by which they were known ~ cudica in some households, la
codica in others ~ reflected the number of villages from which the emigrants had
come. Ritual events, such as christenings and weddings, provided other opportunities
to socialise, and were as significant in bonding the immigrant community at the
beginning of the twentieth century as they had been 50 years eariier. Attendance at
weekly Mass also brought the Italian speakers into contact wdth the general
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