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STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 581/8

Full transcript of an interview with

ANTONIO MARINO, JOSE COUTINHO, & MARILENA COUTINHO

On 24 January 2001

By Catherine Murphy

Recording available on CD

Access for research: Unrestricted

Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study

Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library

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OH 581/8 ANTONIO MARINO, JOSE COUTINHO, & MARILENA COUTINHO

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

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J D SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, MORTLOCK

LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIANA: NO.

Interview by Catherine Murphy with Antonio Marino and his family on 30 October 2000

for the Central Market project.

Tape 1 Side A

Can you tell me when and where you were born and who your parents were?

I was born on 9 March, 1937 in Fossacesia Provincia di Chieti. My momma name is Maddalena

Marino and my father name was Giovanni Marino and they’re born in Fossacesia, Provincia di

Chieti.

Is that in a rural part of Italy?

Yes. Opposite Rome- - - -right across the other side of the Adriatic Sea, 100kms from Rome.

It’s a coastal, holiday, tourist place

Did you grow up on a farm or in the town?

It was a small town and a farm and always I’ve been in business and my ancestors have been in

business for many, many years before I was born. Butcher business I started in my family in

1956 when I started to be a butcher. What I do today, what I know is all my skill, I didn’t have

any teacher. I just learned by myself.

How come you wanted to be a butcher?

I just love to be a butcher- - - - because my ambition was to be an actor, really. I couldn’t do

that because my parents wouldn’t let me because they said: ’I’m going to lose my son.’ After

that, I had everything ready to go to try for an actor, school, everything, but mum and dad said

‘No’, so I couldn’t go. Always I loved to do butcher after that because my father used to kill

pork, the pigs whole and make sausages, salami, prosciutto. And I was looking to him. After

that I started on the job and always I loved to be a butcher, really. My ambition was one day I

was going to do prosciutti. That’s a dream come true in reality.

Did everybody who lived in your village then make their own meat in that way?

Yes, I would say, in those days, yes, but not today, any more.

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Would you raise the pigs yourselves in the back yard?

Yes. We used to have a farm. We used to milk the cows, have the pigs, we used to have the

sheep, we used to have machinery to make olive oil and we had a special license to sell tobacco,

cigarettes, which we had since 1951, this shop for tobacco.

Your family had a shop?

Yes, been always in business.

Was it like a smallgoods business?

Like my shop in town. It used to sell groceries, not meat, just groceries and small goods. In

1956 when I grow and open a butcher’s shop in town- - - - we used to live one kilometre out

from town. When I opened a butcher’s shop, I opened in town. It was about 7000 people living

in town.

Was there anything you could describe to me about being a little boy watching your dad

make prosciutto and things and how that made you feel? What was it about that which

interested you?

Well, very interesting. I don’t know what was interesting, but I was looking- - - really kids are

scared when you kill the pigs. You kill the pigs on top of the plank there and you put them out- -

- and I was looking all the time at that and interested and I was never scared.

And it was tasty and you got something nice to eat!

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Those days really- - - I said the one thing I could say, even today, the

quality of pork in Italy, in Europe, is better than Australian pork. They look after in a way- - -

The way they feed the pigs, they castrate and they don’t smell of urine and those things. It’s

totally different taste of the pigs from there.

When you opened your shop, did you have to have an apprenticeship or anything?

No, I just opened my own shop and start to kill pigs and kill lamb and beef and veal. One day,

one old man would come to help me out with a few little things, but whatever I did I was on my

own.

You had a natural feeling….

Natural instinct, yes. I’m a very creative, put it this way. I’m very creative. I like to do things

always different to the others.

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Did you set up your shop just as a butcher’s shop, it wasn’t like it was now in town?

No, just a butcher’s shop in those days.

Why did you decide to come to Australia.

That’s a big problem! I’m in Australia, not because I need to come to Australia, I’m in Australia

because I was chasing my girl friend, which is my wife now today. Elisabetta. She come- - - -

we were engaged there for four years and her brother came to Australia in 1956. He left in

July/August ’56 and I opened my butcher’s shop in October, ’56. In those business wasn’t very

great over there. If I’d stayed another year or two, I would have come to Australia, even if- - - I

don’t regret I’m in Australia – I’m still happy in Australia. I’ve done well, thank God. I work

hard – always. Today I’m 63 and I still work hard.

You come to Australia for love?

Yes, just about.

Did you come straight to Adelaide?

Yes

What was it like in those day coming from Italy and not speaking English and- - - -

Very, very, very bad. It wasn’t very hard for me because I found my girl friend, my wife today,

my brother in law. It was hard, especially the way people treat us and the names call us. We

been looked down- - - they called us a ‘Dago’, call us ‘Wog’ and I remember one particular day

I was working at Birks, David Jones, one bloke came along to me and I couldn’t understand and

say: ‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’ He pull out a pound and say: ‘You understand this?’ An old

man who was behind me grabbed him by the neck and said: ‘Don’t ever ask that man like

you’re asking or otherwise I’ll punch you in the face.’ Still, I survived. There wasn’t much

European stuff like Italian spaghetti or olive oil.

You couldn’t eat properly.

You couldn’t eat properly.

Did you go and get olive oil at the chemist shop like other people did?

No.

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So how did you get your food?

When I come to Australia we started with a vegetable oil and a little bit we bring over when we

come to Australia lasted for a couple of years. Olive oil, about 20 litres- - - (discussion around the

table about what cask was made of) a finished metal like a stainless steel. Then after two, three

years, people started to bring olive oil, spaghetti, it started to change.

Did you start to make your own?

Spaghetti, yes. Always we did. That’s the beauty of my mother in law always made homemade

spaghetti. There was some stuff, not really much, but you could buy- - -

You couldn’t buy good tomatoes

No. You could get tomatoes for salad, or sauce those days. The first few couple of years was

hard and then gradually it started coming up.

Do you remember the Market in those days? Did you go to the Market for food in the

early days?

Yes, I do remember the Market because when I started at work, the first time I worked, I work

in town, in Currie Street and then I work at Grenfell Street and then I work Rundle Mall, which

was demolition Birks and for a couple of weeks and then I left the building trade and went and

started at a butcher’s in Gouger Street for the Turners.

(off mike: Elisabetta (Antonio’s wife) was just saying there was an Italian man who delivered

door to door.)

Yes, the first shop was Rosetti, Hindley Street, as far as I remember. They used to deliver to us

the stuff in a van. Olive oil, vegetable oil, wine, claret in those days, but I don’t know how it

was made, pasta, small continental stuff. That was in the early ‘60s. But the shop where I am

now, that opened in 1952 by Danny Leoni (spells). He started a more sophisticated- - - as time

was passing by, people were importing more stuff and then he started to go around to deliver the

stuff to the people. That’s from Gouger Street shop, I think it was 58 or 68, I can’t remember

exactly. Now it’s 52, but in those days it was further down, 66 or 68 something like that. There

used to be Leoni (cuckoo clock) and Foodland used to be there.

Did they have Italian food at Foodland.

Yes, but it wasn’t Italian people, but they stocked it. They used to deliver to the Italian

community. No, started Leoni and then Foodland…..it was still Leoni, but still in Foodland, it

was always Leoni Fine Food then changed, in Foodland, but still Leoni and then in 1967, Leoni

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have a partner, which was Aldo Loro and Guiseppe Scarpinelli, which I used to work with them.

They went in partnership with then and I started to work with them in 1967. After 12 months,

my boss bought them out of Leoni and used to call Loro Meat Store. I was still working there.

Was it a butcher’s shop?

Before it was Leoni Fine Food, then when Loro bought them out, they put Loro Meat Store,

which was the Grocery. Then in 1975, I bought my boss out, Mr Loro, with another man, my

partner, whose name was Perre. I bought in partnership with him because my wife was too

scared to come in business, my daughter and son were too small, my brother didn’t want to

come into the business and that’s why I had a partner. But it was the worst of my 10 years

partnership with a man. That’s the worst ten years of my life in Australia. Then from 1975 up to

1984, nearly ten years- - - - one day I decided to buy him out and that was the best thing I’ve

ever done in my life – buy my partner out. It was the happiest day of my life – 4th October,

1984, I’ll never forget that day!

At that time it became Marino Meats?

Then we call it Permar Meat with the partner, but the next day (after I bought him out) I decided

to change the name and called it Marino Meat and Food Store. Since then it’s Marino Food

Store.

Where was that located?

That was located at 54 Gouger Street. It was an old Peoplestore and a ramp going to the Market

and then our shop and the other side of the ramp was the Market. In 1982, we moved into the

Market when the Council bought out Peoplestore and then the Council give us the shop into the

Central Market where we are now in 52-54 Gouger Street.

You started of at Turners and then you had that series of businesses, always in Gouger

Street?

Turners in Gouger Street, then Permar Meat in Gouger Street, then Victoria Square Meat Store

just on the corner from my shop and then back to Gouger Street again where we are now.

During that time you would have seen the Market go through a lot of changes? How do

you describe those changes?

The changes have always been- - - the way I can see every time they changed the Market they

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go for the worst, not for the best. Nobody cares about the Market. Not enough Marinos in the

Market. Everybody would be like a Marino, the Market would be different.

What’s the difference?

The difference is we do care about our business, we do care about the quality, we take better

care of customers- - - I might be rude sometime, but with a right. I always have a respect for

people and I like to be respected too. I’m not a slave of the people, I give service, but I don’t

like some people who pester me.

What about how it’s changed physically? It must look very different?

Physically, the Market has changed in a good way. The way it was before, today it’s a hundred

per cent better. But Management- - - I don’t want to point a person- - - there’s something wrong

along the line, I don’t know what the reason, but I can see the problem is by the shop keeper,

because the shop keeper there today care better for making dollar and go tomorrow. That’s why

I’m back to not like a Marino. Marino is there to stay, I bought that and I pas to my children and

my children will pass to their children. We’re there to stay, not to go away. That’s the way I

look at it. That’s why we do everything the best. The quality, different to the others.

Marilena: And to build up a clientele and know people will come back and that you’ve got

traditional stuff.

We’re got things you can’t get at a Supermarket. That’s why we survive, because if we can’t get

the stuff people ask for, we provide it and get it for them.

I’m interested in what you stock, but can we just explore that about being there to stay. Is

it about tradition that Europeans have had a culture that’s lasted a very long time,

whereas change is something that Australians embrace?

My family, my heritage, my people, my background is that when there’s something good, they

keep it. Never sell. It’s there to stay. Always try to do the best. Culture in Australia is buy today,

sell tomorrow. Always moving. We are different. We are not that way. Good things, we stick to

it. Why should we change if I’ve got a good business, why should we sell it out and buy

something else? I don’t know what I’d buy.

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Marilena: Plus you’re good at what you’re doing. If he was to sell it to any old butcher, that

would turn it into just like a Supermarket butcher and you’d lose that clientele, that gourmet

clientele we have.

Let’s talk about that and what you stock and what’s special about the sorts of stock you

carry.

We stock 98% Italian stuff, apart from the meat, but in the grocery shop. In the butcher’s shop,

we stock from tinned food to pasta, biscuits, olive oil, vinegar, balsamic vinegar, Easter cake,

panettone, Christmas cake, panforte, you name it and we’ve got it.

I can get everything I need to eat at your shop.

Yes, whatever you need, you get at our shop. A lot of Italian people are coming for holiday and

matter of fact, just Saturday, a lady came in and said if anybody come from Italy to see me (she

come about twice a year) I couldn’t let them go back to Italy without a visit to your shop.

Marilena: What he’s trying to say is that not even in Italy can you get a shop with such an

extensive line as what we have. Because we carry gift ware, tomato sauce making machines, the

tops for the bottles, bottling machine, pasta machine, everything, all types of things.

You name it you get it. We do make Italian smallgoods, our brand, San Marino Smallgood,

which goes all over Australia. We make the best prosciutto, the best salami, the best osso colo.

Our salami’s 100% pork, you wouldn’t find that anywhere else in Australia, unless Marino

Meat is going to make it. We make it because we care about the people, we know what good

salami is about - make it with pork and not with beef. That’s why our salami is good.

Marilena: And then the prosciutto, we make the traditional way. And also because we make

prosciutto to be cured over a period of 12 months, and if it’s not 12 months we won’t release it,

so of course you‘ve cured it properly. That’s what gives it its beautiful taste.

Antonio: The old fashioned way, 100 years ago, we still use that method, but we have

technology, such as fridge, because in Australia the temperature’s not like Italy where you can

do prosciutto, in Australia you need the fridge technology.

Marilena: Temperature controlled rooms, humidity etc.

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Antonio: The butcher business, butcher’s shop, we cut the meat a little better and different than

the others. We do prepare meat differently. Like new-fashioned pork in Australia, for me it’s

old-fashioned because I’ve been doing that since 1967 when I started with Mr Loro. The new

fashioned pork is nothing new. It means the way they trim the meat and this and that and we’ve

been doing that for the last 35 years.

I don’t like to be like the others, I like to be different. I like to do so many different roasts which

you’ve got no idea. So many different with the prosciutto, the tomato, the black olive, the

pancetta, pine nuts, carrots, sausage, spiedini, which is another thing and you don’t find that in

Australia anywhere else but Marino. Like zampone for instance, we make zampone and you can

find it only San Marino.

What kind of a shop is this, what name does it have?

The people describe Marino Meat and Food Store as a ‘boutique’. We’ve got Marino boutique,

or Marino the jeweller! We’ve got the quality, that’s my policy, the best quality.

If you wouldn’t eat it yourself, you wouldn’t sell it.

Marilena: Exactly. That takes me somewhere else. We make home make tomato sauce the way

that we make it for ourselves. So when we make it down at the factory, we make 4000 bottles a

year, so when we need it for ourselves, we go to the same heap to help ourselves as what we

would for the shop. So what we use for ourselves we send to the shop to sell for people to buy.

Antonio: there’s so many balsamic vinegar in Australia. Anywhere you go in the Supermarket,

Coles, Woolworths, they want to sell shit and I have to say that because $3.50 to buy half a litre

of balsamic vinegar, what do you expect inside – water? Nothing else. We do sell balsamic

vinegar come from Province of Modena, which has been in the family for seven generations

have been making this balsamic vinegar. They pack balsamic vinegar especially for us, for

Marino.

What’s the name of the place?

Castellnovo Modena. It’s the only two balsamic vinegar that originated in Italy. The Ferrari

family and the Carandini family. They do essences to sell to the others, but we always sell the

best. Balsamic vinegar 110 years old.

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Jose: People have to come to the shop to get that, because we’re the only ones who’ve got that

in South Australia and I would say the whole of Australia because we wanted to bring it for

them. The same thing applies with olive oil.

Antonio: The same with olive oil, we’ve got some olive oil that nobody else has got in

Australia. It is exclusive for our shop and Marino, my cousin. It’s a lemon flavoured oil and

extra virgin oil and after Christmas we have orange flavoured oil coming, which is a new one.

Marilena: For your salads and things like that.

Antonio: We also make 17 different sausages, starting from Australian sausage, English style

sausage, Italian style sausage. Then we make continental sausage with olive, panhetta, pine nuts

and mushroom, rocket sausage, chimichiurri sausage, Spanish style, sun-dried tomato sausage,

chicken sausage, onion, cheese and bacon sausage.

Australian butchers haven’t been making sausages for a long time have they?

Oh, they do, but Australian sausage is different, put it this way. What amaze me sometime when

people come to my shop they say, which is the best sausage and I would always point out the

Italian one, because they are the best. I know what I got inside the sausage and most of the

people say: ‘They’re too fat’. But the Australian one they buy is 50-60% fat.

Tape 1 Side B

I always keep my tradition. When I go back to Italy I say to my cousin, ‘You’ve changed. You

lost your tradition, we’ve still got the old tradition and custom. Like 40 years ago when I came

to Australia, when I go back home, I feel I’m behind them because they change in modern way

to eat and we still use the tradition.

Marilena: Yeah, they use short cuts now, like everybody uses. They don’t really cook the

traditional way, a lot, any more.

Antonio: We still use everything home made, if possible.

Has Australia had any effect on the way you prepare food or think about food? For

ingredients, climate?

Yes. The difference is, when I go to Italy, I eat a plate of spaghetti and I use the same

ingredients, the same Italian tomato, olive oil from Italy, everything from Italy and I cook in

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Australia, there’s a difference. In Italy it tastes better!

Marilena: It’s the water that you boil the pasta in.

Antonio: It’s the climate. My wife wouldn’t believe me. One day, three or four years ago we

went back to Italy and I said: ‘Now, before we go, you eat something and when you go back to

Australia, you do the same thing, cook the same way.’ She did and agreed with me, there is a

difference, there is a lot of difference. I don’t know why, but there is a difference.

You can’t recreate Italy in Australia.

No, it’s a bit hard. We did create Italy in Australia but it’s not the same. We drink………that’s

Italian wine and we’ve got nothing against Australian, don’t get me wrong, I love Australia, I

love Australia, but I can’t drink Australian wine, it give me a headache, Italian wine doesn’t

give me that headache. I can’t drink the Australian water, I import the water direct and you can’t

find it in Australia, it’s just for our family and sell some to the shop. That’s Marino family. I

love Australian, I’m 40 years in Australia- - -

He doesn’t really want to be here!

Marilena: If he had his own way, he would be back in Italy now. It’s just that he’s got too much

family here I think.

Antonio: I came to Australia when I was 23. I spend the best time of my life in Italy. I’m

Australian citizen, I never said there’s anything wrong with Australia, some time I go mad,

yeah, but when I go back in Italy, I want to come back to Australia.

Marilena: Torn between two lovers!

When you first came out here, were there a lot of Europeans migrating at that time and

did the Central market provide any kind of focus for you?

Not in those days. It gradually changed. In those days of 1960s into 1970s and then in the 70s it

started. There were more fruit and veg, more continental food, more Italian and European stuff.

Up until that time were Europeans mostly growing?

In those days they were growing. 1950s, 60s, growing and up to the ‘70s and gradually more

stuff come to Australia from Italy, Greece, or wherever, we are a multicultural country in

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Australia. I do the same thing. I try to bring something different, which is in my own shop

there’s quite a few lines you can’t find anywhere else in the Market, or in Australia.

I’m still curious about what Australia might have contributed to all of you? What

ingredient?

Especially, nothing. That’s the truth. I don’t learn anything from Australia, I give to Australia a

lot of ideas, lot of things and Australia didn’t give me nothing at all.

Marilena: Maybe opportunity.

But we weren’t talking about that. We were talking culinary, food- - -

Antonio: Nothing. I got to give praise to Australian people they can cook a barbecue, nothing

else. I not offend Australia.

Let’s talk about when you were first living at Salisbury and you were making small goods

at home and you said you had a double garage insulated. Tell me what that was like, it

must have been amazing.

That was something. We were growing without realising we was growing. We started to make

this prosciutto with a room, back in 1980, I started making prosciutto. Used to make three or

four a week, just to our own shop and then gradually started four, five, six, seven, and started to

grow. We had a garage, without refrigeration, just as you used to do back home with salt. Then

we thought we’d got to do something decent and we insulated the garage and put refrigeration

inside the garage and started to make quite a few things, to make 20, 30, 40, 50 a week and then

100 a week. It’s a lot of prosciutto, it’s 5000 a year and one garage wasn’t enough, so I built

another garage and insulated and refrigerated plus I did another fridge outside. This was

growing all the time, because the product was good and we never did advertising to sell our

product, never, not on the radio, TV, newspaper. It was mouth to mouth advertising, people try

and ‘oh, it’s good, what you got?’ We finished up selling in Sydney and Melbourne without

advertising, people are ringing up and saying: ‘oh, I heard you got the best prosciutto in

Australia, can you….’ It’s our business today. Gradually we were full and we can’t keep going

like this, so we either stop or go ahead and do something better. Then in 1990 we bought a

block of land at Cavan and then built a factory, which is upgraded with all equipment,

machinery, new technology, new refrigerators, all computerised with the temperature, the

humidity, you name it, it’s there today. We are one of the best prosciutto makers in Australia, I

can say that, not biggest in smallgoods, but best.

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Marilena: Best equipped.

For prosciutto, because we are specialised in prosciutto. Today we make 550 prosciutto a week.

I always said when we get to 100 we stop, or 200 we stop and now we’ve got to 500 and never

stopped and now 550 and we keep going and increase again because the demand is there. Not

because we want to make to sell, we can’t keep up with the demand.

Marilena: At this stage here we could sell twice the amount we’re making now, but we haven’t

got the capacity at the factory. We’re full.

You need time and money, which is the main thing.

Tell me about this rustic set up that you had at Salisbury?

Marilena: We used to work seven days a week, public holidays, every day. This was after work.

They would go to work in the shop in Gouger Street in the Market and then go home and

continue there.

Antonio: We used to make sausages and salami in Gouger Street and back, at night time, in

Salisbury to salt prosciutto, massage the prosciutto Saturday and Sunday after work all day, put

the netting on prosciutto to keep going, otherwise we could employ more people- - - -

The pigs were delivered to the shop, it was all legal, all at Gouger Street. Just curing, storage at

Salisbury. At one stage I thought we can’t keep going like this because it wasn’t big enough and

we used to live there and when you live and work at a place, there’s no life any more, so I said,

we’ve got to stop or find a better way or stop completely. The boys; my son and son-in-law and

daughter and daughter-in-law and everybody said we’ll go ahead and do something, which we

did.

Everyone’s working together

Yes, we do the family way.

Jose: I remember when I first started, he said if I sell 10 prosciutto a week, I’ll be happy. Then

he said, we’ve reached 10, now when we’ve reached 500 you get a trip to Italy and I’m still

waiting for it!

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Antonio: You knew Ilario Lamberto? He was a travel agent in Gouger Street and he was a good

friend of mine, he passed away ten years ago.

His statue is in the Plaza. He looks like a lovely man. I give him a pat when I wait for the

lift.

He was a top bloke. If he could help a person, he never refused anything for the community,

Italian community, he helped a lot of people. Always he told me: ‘Tony, don’t you dare call

yourself the god-father of Gouger Street before I go. When I go, you become god-father of

Gouger Street. Joking around, not really.’ Poor bugger, he passed away ten years ago and since

then some people call me the god-father of Gouger Street.

Marilena: They also call you ‘Grumpy of Gouger Street’.

Antonio: Grumpy Marino. When I’ve got something to say, I say it, it doesn’t matter.

Marilena: As you can tell by this interview!

Antonio: I not say something behind your shoulder. If I got something, it’s straight in your face,

so you can answer me back. It’s not good to talk behind your shoulder, you don’t know, so

that’s the type of person I am. Straight forward.

Let’s talk a little bit about the suppliers, the local suppliers you have for things like your

tomato sauce or any other things. Do you have special people who are making things for

you?

Yes. Not connected to the Market, no. I get my stuff from……I used to get in South Australia,

but the quality was very poor.

Marilena: In turn, the tomato sauce didn’t come out good and thick.

Antonio: they send me the top quality from Melbourne. I pay a bit extra, but that doesn’t worry

me. Quality I pay always. That goes for the pigs and the legs for prosciutto.

I’m interested in that issue of quality. How do you know that something is a high quality

unless you’ve actually been involved with growing something or being involved with hand-

on making something. If I go into a shop and I haven’t been used to top quality things, you

don’t know what quality means.

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That’s a good point. This is Antonio Marino, Jack of all Trades. I be farmer. I been milking

cows. I been growing tomatoes back in home. I been butcher. In Australia I done everything,

you name it from a farmer, grow celery, grow tomato, grow cabbage, potatoes, capsicum,

carrots, beetroots, wheat, wine, grapes, you name it and I did. That’s why I know everything

about. When I talk about quality, I understand quality, whatever it is, I do understand.

I’m interested in how people who are coming up, children who are growing up now,

they’re so set apart- - -

Antonio: Maybe I got something as a gift from God. I’m different from the others.

But everybody had it in the old days.

Marilena: That’s right. I was just going to say, it’s the way he was brought up, he’s got an eye

for quality. When he goes to buy his fruit from the Market and his vegetables, he’s got an eye. I

tell him to buy my stuff, because I can’t get it how he gets it.

Antonio: I look for things. I can see quality. It doesn’t matter what it is.

It’s a terrible thing to lose, in each generation, we start to lose it

Antonio: Because I’m interested in those things. If I look at those things- - - If you’re doing

something, I don’t have to ask: ‘what are you doing?’ I just put my hands behind my back and I

look.

Marilena: Observation, he’s trying to say.

Antonio: That look to me is enough to know what you do. I go to Italy for instance and when I

go to Langhirano which is a province of Parma, where’s the mother of the prosciutte. Three

thousand, three hundred people live in that town and make prosciutti in the factory. When I go

there, they let me- - - I go in and never ask a question, I look around and I know what to look

for and I know what they do, how they do it and everything, that’s my skill. If you start to ask a

question, you’re finished. They might turn their back, but don’t ask and that’s the best recipe.

I’m interested in that issue, because in the old days, the Market was a growers market and

people grew it and sold it and those links between the grower and seller and the customer

get more and more diluted.

Marilena: Yes it does.

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Antonio: What I said before, it’s people in the Central Market, don’t care about the Central

Market, they care about making a dollar today, they don’t care about tomorrow, that’s why I’m

getting the best quality, best product, best everything because I like to be there. I like my son

and daughter and son in law and daughter in law and my grandchildren to take over.

You want the Market to remain there.

I would love it to be there all the time.

You don’t think it would be under threat?

I don’t think so.

Marilena: I don’t know, with fast food. Like you said, the young generation, people who don’t

want to cook any more.

Antonio: I can see people, the first ten years of marriage or whatever- - - - -

Marilena: I think the Market’s got to diversify, it’s got to change and make ready-prepared

meals like people are looking for. Go in buy it and go home and cook it. Or even cooked meals

perhaps.

Antonio: That’s against my will. That’s not a Market any more, that’s finished. Market is there,

what they should be more fresh product.

Marilena: You’ll still get that, but you’ll find it will be half and half, it will change.

Antonio: No good to have McDonald or Hungry Jack or whatever or Pasta Fasta. That’s no

place to do that. That’s a Central Market. Fruit and veg.

Will people want fresh food into the future? Do you ask yourself that?

Yes.

They will want it more. The rich people will pay more.

If you go back 10 years ago, the people disappeared from fresh food, but gradually they come

back.

Marilena: I suppose with the healthy eating- - -

Slow foods

Antonio: Fast food, the health if not there. You go to a doctor and you got cholesterol, you got

to prevent those things, you got to do something about, you got to eat and go back on natural

things.

Do you have as many customers in the Market as you used to have?

Yes. Our business is still good, I can’t complain. We do complain sometime, we’re not busy,

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but at end of the week, when you empty your fridge, that means you’ve been busy. We are

never happy. A good business man is never happy. That’s the truth.

I’m interested in the notion that the Market is a place where small producers can have an

outlet for products that they wouldn’t produce enough of to sell to a Supermarket.

They’re not big enough to do that and as there’s more food regulations and the

Supermarkets have more control, they those small people get pushed out. The people who

survive are the people who can grow a bit, but then if you grow, you start to move away

from the heartland or quality?

Our shop and our factory so far control everything. Automatically, you do grow, because if you

don’t this means the business is no good. You got to grow a little bit.

Jose: We do grow, but we still control. Basically, we’re the first ones in the morning to open up

the gates and the last ones to get out. We keep track of our workers, we tell them ‘don’t do it

like that, do it like this.’ Last Saturday we were packing prosciutto and one of the boys was

putting the label for the prosciutto ham not on the centre of the product. I said, it’s not staying

on the centre, if you take a bit more care, you get the label on the centre and when the customer

puts it on their display, it looks good, it doesn’t look backyard way.’ He said: ‘oh, you’re right.’

We try, it’s not that we sit in an office or whatever, we don’t do that. We’re all over the place.

Marilena: Hands-on.

You’re passionate about it.

Yeah. I’m 63 years old and I still work and I’m there all the time. I’m in the factory, I’m in the

shop, I’m there to work, to control, to see things. I tell them off, my son, or anyone. If I don’t

like the things, I’ll tell them off. A little while ago, I saw the display clean, all the green this

way and I said, ‘as from today, I do not want the display that way. When you finish at night

time, you put the green all in a line, straight. People passing by, the empty display looks nice, or

it looks a shoddy place.

What does San Marino mean?

It means- - - Our surname is Marino and when we registered the name first it was Marino Meat

and Food Store, but the name if prosciutto- - - we got to do something about this, no good to say

Marino Smallgoods, it’s too personalised and they used to call me Devil Marino, and so I said

‘if you call me Devil, I’ll make myself a saint and I call myself San Marino Smallgoods and

that’s it!

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Saint Marino.

Marilena: He’s nothing but a saint!

Antonio: Some people confuse it with the Republic of San Marino, but it’s nothing to do with

that. We’ve got a trademark now and there was no objection all over the world, so we went

ahead.

Thank you very much, it’s a pleasure to talk to you. The names of the other people who’ve been

talking who I didn’t introduce at the beginning are:

Jose Coutinho (son in law)

Marilena Coutinho (Anontio’s daughter)

and Elisabetta (Antonio’s wife).

Thanks very much.