in this agricultural region of Italy harvesting or "la raccolta", whether for the current season's mushrooms, chestnuts, olives, mandarin and clementines or cabbage...it's all in the family, not just the local farmers who are out there hard at work...the work of the farmer or "contadino" is the homefront... On a crisp and sunny Sunday morning my husband and I joined my sister-in-law's husbands family (3 brothers and 2 sisters plus a dozen children) in northwestern Basilicata, near Castelsaraceno, for a day of gathering chestnuts or "castagne". Our drive from Bernalda (8 cars worth of family) was about 70 minutes winding roads through the low rolling hills, past roughly plowed terrain, fields rich with local autumn vegetables as well as abandoned stone farmsteads and bridges. Once we reached the forrest protected by the region of Basilicata,
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