THE BRAZIER

It is well known that in Fallo the winters are never mild and the problem of keeping warm is always there.

Besides the fireplaces of earlier times and the later wood stoves there were no ways of mitigating the winter harshness. The bedrooms almost always located in the upper floors were particularly cold, and a brazier full of burning charcoal taken for the purpose from the fireplace or from the stove was the only way to warm them up.

The warmer in the picture is a fancy copper model, complete with the little shovel to stir the charcoal and with the iron holder to easily transport it from one room to another.

Naturally, not everyone had the luxury of owning a fancy one, and often the braziers, called in dialect "coppe", were made with any available objects; a pan with holes, a pan with a missing handle, or any other implement recycled from the household.

In fact, the real and true brazier was called "la coppe di lu fuoche" or "la coppe di la vrasce" to distinguish them from another "coppe" (see lexicon) used to bake food in the fireplace.

It was not unusual that someone would use the brazier with burning charcoal to cook a few potatoes, an egg "a la coque", or to toast bread. It was a way to combine the useful with the desirable.