The Salami Makers and a Taste of New Italy

in a lush Valley in Far Northern New South Wales just under the Queensland border a little piece of Italy comes to life every winter descendants of Pietro cinotti and Angela batistusi who escaped extreme poverty in Northern Italy more than 140 years ago gathered to celebrate their Italian Heritage and make salami of the six generations of sanati and batistusi families four are here today headed by the Donald family Kevin cenotti and Nona Elizabeth a bit of the old tradition still hangs on you can see how much notice they don't take it starts when the essential ingredient arrives in a refrigerated van handy this one these days they buy a pig from the abattoir but it wasn't always that simple years ago we used to grow the pick here and you come out and after there's a killing by and hang them up and um just uh put the bullet in him and and then go from there Dave Ward heads the salami making operations married to Kevin sonati's daughter he's done nearly a 40-year apprenticeship um he'd do it with about four or five other blokes and they'd start sad day they'd kill the pig and what have you and I know they'd have a bit of a drink said that night and then they'd come back Sunday and but it was all sort of five blokes doing the whole lot so you'd be a daylight you'd be there till probably two o'clock if you had a big pig it's still a two-day process day one cut the skin off the carcass the middle spot the middle spot and cut the meat into strips [Music] so it doesn't have to look pretty at this day [Music] it's no small job and it's all hands on deck there are no tears but there can be blood y long before he's bleeding I can show you my gloves and my Band-Aid for the annual salami making some 30 family members partners and friends are pitching in my partner's Andy and I like to be involved it's really fun and it's something different enjoy it plus I really enjoy eating the salami so how hard is it to do Peter yes it's pretty hard especially when you're an amateur and you only do it once a year we watch a butcher do it one year you just made us look silly this is all the good fat under the skin we need this if there's if there's too much meat in salami it's just no good they need a fair amount of fat yeah because it just dries out otherwise and fats flavor Kevin will be happy oh well as happy as he can be he's very hard to please the fat in the overall process is the important bit otherwise it's just too dry and the fat also absorbs the herbs spices wine salt as well as the meat does but this is more than about making salami for the families for the next year it's all about keeping the Traditions alive and keeping the family history alive from one generation to the next this is a great family gathering the sausages are the bonus but getting together it's all just it's great stuff all of that family it's all about food it's just so great yeah all my grandchildren are here that's great and Friends hey you can see where it's come from then yeah through the Italian tradition it's it's really all about the family that's what it comes down to and it doesn't cost any the Italian Heritage they celebrate today began here new Italy near Woodburn in Northern New South Wales refugees from the Northern Italy province of Veneto founded a community in the early 1880s 48 families desperate to escape crippling drought politics and War paid French Convent Marquis De raised for passage to what they were led to believe would be paradise an Italian Community set up on an island off Papua New Guinea it was a disastrous Expedition 340 set out almost a hundred died on the three-month voyage for the survivors their suffering was far from over there was no island paradise no Community waiting to welcome them just jungle on impenetrable unsuitable land no it was a little bit of a sham actually he took their money and promised them the land of milk and honey and it was um it wasn't it was they landed in a place well New Island the off New Guinea and it was basically jungled to the Sea and Headhunters of malaria you know and they struggled there for about four months all that they were left with was the boat that by now was unseaworthy they made their way to numea where survivors were rescued by Australian authorities New South Wales Premier Sir Henry Parks ordered a ship to pick them up 217 of the original 340 and brought to Sydney a year later members of the Expedition and other families settled here three thousand acres of scrub virgin Bushland with poor soil what they wanted they wanted to all live together they wanted to form a community on their own and um and they thought that soil here looked like the fertile saw that they were used to back in back in Italy but unfortunately it wasn't that fertile and they struggled on the land here but they made a living I did make a living from it it was basically Bush and they cleared it and there was a lot of logging to clear the land a lot of hard work went into it they did make a living but I think the the children realized that the land wasn't the best and they sort of moved on you know got married and moved away and and in the end the the the community saloni died but today it lives on a hundred years after the first settlers arrived passionately committed descendants raised money to purchase 17 Acres of the original New Italy site to build a permanent Memorial a celebration of the struggles and life of their ancestors this site holds the stories of how those people what their lives were like before they left and what the experience of the actual Journey was and how they actually you know after an incredibly sort of like tragic um Journey managed to pull their lives back together again were separated and then came together and knew Italy at the new Italy sort of community site currently we have listed descendants and that's someone who can trace a bloodline back to one of these settlers is in the order of 11 700. new Italy's archivist Leicester cook himself a descendant of the original settlers tracks and Records the ever-expanding list of descendants when I do the genealogy records I include all include all the people who were on the expedition in deference to the fact that they had all that suffering together so to me it seemed a little a little bit rude to separate them just because they didn't come to New Italy he has created what is known as the new Italy spaghetti family tree a bizarre complicated interconnection of descendants and relatives well you're going first of me I really needed a reminder of that one Donna Weston and her cousin Chris Rollins are fourth generation descendants of Pietro and Angela cinotti a young couple who settled and married at New Italy the first the family from the Marquis De Ray expedition was the batistusis and that was our first connection and and then they through the line where you went to the nickel eyes and then the sonatis and then to current day basically we grew up in Lismore which had quite a lot of the people from New England of The Descendants from from New Italy were there weren't they because they gravitated to that area a lot but the um the baddest duties a lot of them went to casino area but we we have a similar look like we've all got this surrounder face which is lovely and it's kind of like sorry cousins have you ever see this but you know like the more stocky body that's us so we've all short and close to the payment yes that's definitely us so that's what my father father used to say anyway with the meat cut up it's time to sit back relax and enjoy the traditional Italian hospitality because it's a six o'clock start next morning well six ish [Laughter] now the serious work begins mincing and seasoning the meat this is make or break time 14.75 the meat is carefully weighed so that it's just the right amount of seasoning goes in salt pepper and garlic infused wine you know some people put other spices in them we're going to try out a bit of cinnamon and apple in a little thin sausage this year something a bit different how it turns out it might be a one year thing and forget about it but it's a time-honored process and it has to be done just right spiritual assault on top you'll see it happening and then the pepper and then the garlic that's crushed up in in wine and yeah it goes over the top of the dissolve into it just put a bunch of holes in it so that the spices and herbs and good stuff can penetrate the meat and marinate are she in the positions rather than your fingers if you pick up a splinter it's up underneath your nails just like playing with Play-Doh and then comes the good stuff wine infused with garlic you don't put the garlic wine right the garlic stays out yeah otherwise oh I don't know well it'll be like you're putting a whole garlic and I never tried it that would be like a moment of like the old salamis when we get the old peppers and we go oh my God it's so hot you'll be like oh my God it's a process that takes hours and it's not until the spices are mixed in and the fat squashed and broken up that the meat can be boiled up and put into the compressor to make the salami but this is more than about making salami for the families for the next year it's all about keeping the Traditions alive and keeping the family history alive from one generation to the next I think our role as we get our continue retelling the story that's the really important part for us now until you start to know the story and own the story The connection's not there like the nephews and nieces you know they've been raped into Health as as cousins are um and they have some sort of connection but I think um I think if you keep telling the stories to the young ones you know like we were we were we tell the same jokes every year about salami making and you can imagine what those jokes are and every year we tell them this year we didn't tell them because we had a bunch of new people in there and I wasn't so confident about what we could say but um those stories and like retelling the stories about Uncle Norm and Auntie Polly so they're they're still alive and um their stories of new Italy are the stories that we have to keep telling because we otherwise they do get lost yeah and these kids come from that really an amazing um but there is one tradition remaining before the families head off for another year the Dom Kevin cernotti has to give his judgment on this year's salami this is a very traditional part of the salami day the Costa where all the ribs are cooked on the barbecue we have that for morning too and part of its quality control where the results are part of the mixture and the Dom will check them and and make sure he's happy with the salt content the pepper content the garlic and then you'll give us the go ahead and say if they're okay or if they're not going to add more Pepper or salt whatever's needed foreign usually so the family says he's never completely happy I hope the others don't like it tasting good to me um they got it right that's it for another year but next year the families will gather to do it all over again as it's been done through six Generations over more than 140 years and hopefully many more generations to come I feel a strong connection to the Italian story I feel very Australian there are certain things that you do that bring the family together because of the Italian traditional as uh the italian-ness of new Italy is kind of dispersed into the hinterland and everything and this intermarriage has happened and all of that sort of stuff you tend to find that there's been a sort of like a like the way the rest of Australia is going you know the this Multicultural melange of you know cultures which is and the sum is Australian you know so in many ways there's a lot of australian-ness here as well as new Italy or Italians I think for myself and for my family and we really didn't know much about this story it wasn't told much which is and I find that interesting because there are also a lot of other people that I come across didn't know the story as they grew up but became aware of it later and were and were fascinated by it yes everything everybody loves Italian oh they got style and class and design and you know they're yeah they're good the food's great [Music] [Laughter]

Channel: Paul Michaels

Views: 70,176

Keywords:

Id: MfGhAvafJ6k

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 06 2022