THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Still, there was a hard beauty to the place.  In the mountains, wolves and wild boar roamed forests of beech, cedar and holly oak.  Below the peaks, woods gave way to vines and pastures, followed by estuary flats filled with citrus orchards. The Calabrians, culstered in ancient mountain towns that were cut off for months in winter by snowdrifts, were poor, resilient, and resolutely autonomous.  Some families still spoke Grecanico, a Greek dialect left behind by the Byzantines in the eleventh century.  The men hunted boar with shotguns and swordfish with harpoons.  The women spiced sardines with hot peppers and ar-fried trout, to be turned into a pungent brown stew.

Perry/New Yorker, 2018