For us, children who grew up with a strong foreign influence (French grandmother, German nannies, Swiss sojourns, American habits (*)…), hunting for eggs hidden in meadows and trees was a normal thing, at a time when this tradition was not at all common in Italy.
So we gather for the ritual image, me, Luisa and the cousins with our mothers, Giorgina (brunette) and Maria Luisa known as Lu (blonde), whose daughters Benedetta and Elisabetta in blue and blue are next to Violetta dressed in red. Behind me Matteo Rivolta, Virginio’s son, and next to him the very blond Aldo Rivolta, son of Luigi, Virginio’s brother, whose mother is Vanna Austoni, Lu’s sister.
This photo was probably not taken in Albiate but in Macherio, at the Rivolta family home. Virginio and Luigi Rivolta, also textile industrialists, were family friends. Virginio is in the photo in the book where Dad’s friends are portrayed on the day of his marriage to my mother Giorgina.
It is an image from my childhood that is very dear to me, full of the tenderness of memories, perfect to wish everyone a peaceful Easter.
(*) France and the USA especially influenced our table manners: not only did we often eat French food – quiche lorraine or soufflé – for example, but Dad, on his way back from Texas, where he had worked in textiles, got us used to eating corn flakes and tomato ketchup. The latter was adored by Violetta who, at the time, would not eat meat without dressing it with ‘American sauce’.
These habits certainly influenced our subsequent assortment choices, over the years, at Esselunga : we, on the shelves, had products that were ‘different’ from the others because we knew and liked them, as well as because customers in the centre of Milan asked for them. I am referring, for example, to French cheeses, certain types of water, wine, biscuits, etc..
Thanks to Eleonora Sàita and Roberta Liberale
