A few steps just outside of the historic centre of the prettiest city in the entire south of Italy is a little market that I love. It's not particularly picturesque. At first glance it probably won't cause you to swoon with its fecundity, nor opulence of choice. It's a market. You buy food there. The building itself has been there for a few hundred years, but then again in Italy, that hardly stands out as significant.

It's the people that work there that make make it special. If you come to Lecce this year, here is who you'll meet:

Simone

Third generation in the same five meters, Simone couldn't be more centrally-located, nor be more of a presence here at the market. He's the first thing you see when entering. Now that 88 year- old Luigi has retired, Simone's fruits and vegetables provide the visual metronome to the seasons, just like Christmas decorations in department stores or the presence of chocolate eggs come Easter.

Every day I enter the market I'm surprised by something Simone has on offer, that it's already there. Of course, you'd have to really know the Salento, to see which tomato shows up come the end of September, which pears will be making a brief appearance come the falling of the yellowing winter leaves.

'But you don't usually have these until early summer', I'll often say, and he'll just return my gaze until I realise that it IS in fact already early summer. Then Autumn. Then winter. And then early summer again and we'll have the same conversation, both of our whiskers moving a little more away from black pepper to the more saline shades.

 

Sandro

Sandro shares my love of antique recipes, things done the old-fashioned way, when human ingenuity was all one had. I'll find a curious recipe in the school's cookbook library, and we'll run with it. Roasting a goat. Stuffing a whole pig with fennel and pancetta. The phrase 'ground mutton ragù' was enough to inspire us both to hours and hours of research, the fruit of which we now serve at the school almost every week.

I texted Sandro last week, with only the words: 'Roast a pig upside down, using the skin as a balloon for marinades'. I received 7 giddy messages within minutes, each an augmented shopping list for the marinade. (The results will be served on our 7th birthday party in September, sign up on the site). He makes the best spicy sausage I've ever had outside of Spain, and no matter how I try, I still can't replicate them. Somehow though, I'm pleased than I can't.

Federica

At only 20, Federica is now a third-generation meat cuter and yet another member of the small army, all progeny from just a single butcher. To know her is to watch the formation take shape: As a young girl she was brought in to work the cash register on slower afternoons. That she was more a mascot than cashier wasn't wasted on anyone, except maybe her. Folks would wrench their backs just to lean over the counter to pinch her cheeks, her quick smile a well-performed little flash.

Then, a few years later she started part-time, while still in high school, rarely with a knife in hand: she mostly assembled 'convenience cuts', stuffing chicken thighs with sage and garlic and wrapping them with a piece of pancetta; forcing rabbit morsels onto wooden skewers, and soaking them in dried herbs and white wine; grinding secondary cuts into meatballs, meatloaf and all the dishes in between. (Butchers in Italy are often called upon to make up the difference now that most women work outside of the home. What surprises most foreigners is how little of these 'convenience foods' have ever seen the inside of a factory: Most are made by people you know on a first name basis).

Now Federica cuts more meat, breaking down whole carcasses into more consumer-ready cuts. And sometimes she'll take my order, her innocent flirtation enough to redden my cheeks.

Cesare

Cesare hasn't been at the market for more than a few years. He took over abandoned stalls of the long-forgotten vendors, those who were put out of work when supermarkets came to town.

'My grandmother shopped here with my mother. My mother with me. Now I work here, and I couldn't be happier to play my little part in the market's history'. His soft voice caresses each carefully-selected word, a natural orator who has that singular ability to make you feel like you're the most important person in the world when standing in front of him.

As one of the most soft-spoken, gentle souls I know, Cesare underplays his own role in the Renaissance of our little market. He would never say this, nor even see it this way but he seems to have a unique gift, based on something deep inside of him, something that I can only call 'humanity' : the absolute delight of social interaction, that thing that makes us uniquely human. And no matter how nifty the misters in the supermarkets nor how bright the lights, as long as this, humanity-of-the-quotidian continues to be valued here in the Salento, our market here in Lecce has a fighting chance.

Say 'thanks' when you meet him.

Luc

Luca doesn't cook, but like so many males in Latin Europe, he sees his criticism of his wife's cooking as an integral part of what happens at the table. What makes him stand out is that he's particular observant without being fussy, a trait all too rare.

Which interests me deeply, as Luca's wife is one of the 55,000 folks from la Grecia Salentina, the 9 communities just south of Lecce that still speak a form of Ancient Greek. Buy a loaf of bread and you have Luca on demand, his recounting of the subtlest nuances of a dish, prepared by faithful cooks often just villages apart.

Where as I tend to the see the Salento as a core (the city of Lecce) and the periphery (the rest of the Salento), the entire land mass as a series of radiating ripples of culinary tendencies, Luca sees it more binary, either Latin leaning or the more Hellenistic. Buy your bread from him and it comes with a lot more than a paper bag, when I'm alone, he and I often talk for hours.

Mimmino

'You'll break your camera if you take my picture', Mimmino always says while waddling his way around the counter on our last days, when students insist on having their picture taken with him. (Our little school will be on Dutch and Belgian television in March, but take a guess who stole the show for the film crew. The best part is that Mimmino had no idea we were filming, as he didn't even notice the microphone clips or all the television cameras. He simply captured their hearts with his sad-dog eyes, his ready, self-effacing humour and uncountable slices of paper-thin prosciutto).

If the market had a mayor, it would certainly be Mimmino, who not only has the physical keys to the market, but always writes the schedule, not an easy matter in a country with so many national, regional and local holidays. But he also has to take into account how we celebrate each holiday as well, and which foods play a part in the festivities, facilitating longer open hours on the days right before.

I treat the market as a class room, which always made him curious about the lectures I give in English to students in front of his case. One day I decided to translate it for him, only to watch his puppy-dog eyes follow my words as I went down the line:

'This is salt cod from Scandinavia, which was much more eaten than fresh fish for a thousand years in Italy, even though we're surrounded by sea. Fishing has always been expensive, both in money and loss of human life. And impractical before refrigeration. Also, keep in mind that half the year used to be 'fasting day's, which meant no red meat, wine or sex. These cheeses represent 'milk's leap toward immortality' in an age before refrigerators. Here are the capers, one of the few crops better cultivated than wild. When we leave the market I'll show you how they grow right out of the walls, and how each caper is really an unopened pretty little purple flower. This is barley flour, still widely eaten here at the bottom of Europe, while Central Europe seems madly in love with the white and refined flours. Here is olive oil and the Salento used to be OPEC of Europe, providing lamp oil to much of the rest of Europe, loading it onto boats off the coast of nearby Gallipoli for sale to England Germany. I think it's nearly impossible for any of us to really understand the poverty that formed these foods. You don't have to go very far back to see that humanity quite literally survived on weeds, for hundreds of generations. This absence can still be felt, almost tasted in the food.'

He looked at his counter and he looked back at me as I spoke, back and forth, until a student nudged me to point out that Mimmino's thick and hammy palm was smudging his tears.

'I've worked here since I was a boy', he said. 'I'm a vendor. I wear an apron. It's never occurred to me that this is also, well, anthropology, seen from your side of the case. Bravo Silvestro! Bravo! This is our history here. Bravo! we must never forget. Bravo', he said, his voice cracking, he hands trembling as he turned his back in embarrassment. 'You do a good job, Silvestro', he said.

I can't recall a compliment I've ever valued more, and I turned away as well.

Ermanno

'My very first job was dispatching rabbits', Ermanno says, without even a hint of irony or anguish. 'I was ten. Once you know how to do it, it's really easy and not remotely traumatic. So, aside from being born my father's son- a butcher- I had had already done the hardest part. It never occurred to me to do anything else.

'Last night, my wife made tajedda -buona- and some grilled chicken- buono- and served with a nice celery salad-buona. I'll get the recipe for you if you want. Yesterday we had le orecchiette- buone- and then an ice cream out- buono. Have you tried that new wine yet', he asks me.

'Buono', I say.

'Ah, si? Buono', he says, and continues with his knife.

Gianfranco

Custom-agents would never believe it but Gianfranco owns a permanent space in my luggage. Or so he seems to believe. 'France, huh? So what did you bring me?' he'll ask, not to ascertain if I did in fact bring him something, but to gauge how much he thinks he'll like it. Sausages from Spain. A dried alligator head from the Everglades. A strange cheese from Switzerland. A scorpion frozen in a lollipop. Jars of white asparagus from up North. 'Next time, don't bring me cheese, bring those cakes I saw on TV last night', he'll say, or 'Easy on the sausages, I'm more into salted hams now'. I've yet to form a final opinion on the silence brought about by an empty-handed arrival on my part. It will last a few days, like the cat you neglected a little too long. But then sooner or later, he'll hear about an upcoming trip and I'll have my orders. 'Do you have anything to declare, ' the custom officers will ask me. ' Yes, I say. I declare that within 5 years I'll have smuggled enough dead animal parts to start a forensics lab, and the better part of a deli'.

Aldo

You'll likely never speak with Aldo. And it's a pity, because while he's a sweetheart of a guy, he's also a horsemeat butcher, an ingredient that we still can't offer at the school, even seven years into it. I really wish we could, as carne equina is historically the most consumed red meat in many parts of Italy, and not just the poorer south.

Personally, I eat horsemeat often, certainly more than beef, which has to be imported from up north, usually Emilia-Romagna but often as far away as France or Spain. (If you doubt me, check out the lavender-coloured dye in the primal cuts the next time you're anywhere in Italy.)

Domestic journalists routinely ask me if we have to dumb-down our cuisine to make it more accessible to foreigners. I always say 'no', but sooner or later it comes back to Aldo, and why so many foreigners view horsemeat as barbaric. Especially when nearly all of them arrive from nations where eating the flesh of cows and pigs is a national pastime.

In seven years, the jokes in the market have rarely varied. 'I'm into Slow Food but that's too slow'. 'I can't eat any meat that comes with a head'. 'I could never eat 'Sea biscuit' or 'Mr. Ed'. I always smile politely and say only, 'While carne equina is an important part of our cuisine here in the Salento, we won't be having any this week'.

That the block is culture-bound versus theological really bothers me. (We have had practicing Jews, Muslims and Hindus at the school, without even the slightest of issue). To someone here, it's like a relative coming to dinner announcing that he adores eating ducks, quails and geese but is far too humane of a person to ever think of eating a chicken. Fox hunting nations that protest bull fights while on holiday. Rodeo lovers that denounce the eating of song birds. It's easy to romanticize food's ability to unite but its darker side also has the ability to divide.

Giuseppe and Pina

And then there is Pina, who is the biggest sweetheart you'll ever meet. Everyone loves Pina. Students buy her flowers. Folks knit her stuff. She gets post cards and she beams and beams as she shows them to me, her pronunciation of foreign cities as cute as cute can be. Nearly everything I've made in the last few years- my tomato sauce, my quince paste, my vincotto, all my preserves, pickles and potions- some of it ends up on Pina's table. And I couldn't have a more receptive audience.

I've known Pina for fifteen years, although she doesn't remember me that far back, when I was just a goofy university student living up north, coming down as often as possible, back before high speed trains. When I graduated and began to teach even further up north, I continued to come down here, my new wages making the trip more about the time than the money.

I remember Pina vividly, and her husband Giuseppe as well, who both run a tiny little produce stand in the walls of the market. At one point she offered exotic fruit- come to Lecce and you can still see where she has painted over the words, right above her door- she's now gone more traditional, both in bending to the economic crisis, but too, that it's simply harder to buy too much of something when you buy what you know.

'Are you working hard these days Silvestro', Pina asks me, her arm linked in mine as she speaks. 'Yes, Pina', very hard. I'm writing a newsletter to tell everyone to come meet you', I say. 'Why would anyone want to meet an old lady that sells onions and tomatoes', she asks, as if I had proposed the craziest thing she had ever heard. 'Because this market is special', I say, saying something that she already knows. As I start to walk home with a cabbage from Pina, a steak from Aldo, some bread from Luca, I glance back at Pina as she looks up at the building itself, her eyes as wide as a child's.

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