Maria Di Rienzo
The hard country life

Maria Di Rienzo is one of the most loved women of Pioppi (Pollica – Salerno), the place chosen by Ancel Keys and Margaret Haney as their summer residence. Her facial expression effectively complements the often muted phrases featured in this interview.

Maria was born in 1926 and has always spent her life working, carrying the hoe “better than men”. According to her, the secret to living well and for a long time is precisely this: work, never stop working.

The stories she tells reveal a tough, very tough childhood, the sixth of ten children and often without food. Today, however, Maria eats in abundance, she eats “always”, almost as a ransom to satisfy a hunger lived too long. And eat those simple dishes that smell of authenticity: acquasale, fusilli with goat sauce and grated goat cheese, lots of vegetables, chicken with potatoes, omelette. He never talks about sweets.

She cooks, and sometimes she prepares fresh pasta for others too. She has no one to take care of the housework for her but she herself helps any people who need it.

If in the past her mother was forced to beg to raise an extra goat to feed her children or go to the mill with wheat to make their pasta, today Maria is happy to have built an entire palace for her two children, symbol of a job and a time that have been able to be gallant.