It was cold during the winter in Enna. To warm up the rooms, people made use of braziers burning charcoal slack. It was customary to cook small pieces of sausage or a few potatoes, wrapped in yellow, thick paper of the kind used to wrap pasta, in the charcoal. We children vied with one another to eat a small piece of that delicacy.
Since the climate was colder than today, the roofs of the houses were white with snow almost all winter. Whenever I came home from school, I had the bad habit of warming up my frozen feet and hands in front of the brazier. The sudden contact of my cold hands and feet with the heat of the brazier caused me chilblains. My fingers and toes had purple hues and itched. To cure them, I wore thick woolen socks and gloves.
This is an excerpt from A Hidden Sicilian History
Today it snows in Enna like seventy years ago. Obviously, despite climate changes, the earth will survive!
Ettore Grillo author of these books:
– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily
– A Hidden Sicilian History
– The Vibrations of Words
– Travels of the Mind
Ettore Grillo's Blog 