IT is extremely apt that the Edinburgh institution of Valvona and Crolla, the Italian delicatessen, has recently been appointed by Royal Warrant as a supplier of fine cheese to Her Majesty the Queen.

Appropriate because the forebears of owners Mary and Philip Contini were shepherds in the mountains of central Italy who, although poor, were known for the excellent pecorino cheese, which they made and sold at market.

Despite this reputation for good cheese, life was desperately hard and with families increasing and a limited supply of land, the fittest young men set out to walk to Scotland in search of a better life.

They made it to this country and they and their families became hardworking members of the community. Yet Mary , who was born in 1956 to a respected Italian family in Cockenzie, East Lothian, confesses she always felt a little bit different.

She was curious about her Italian heritage and decided to research both her own and her husband's family tree to share with their daughters Francesca and Olivia.

What she discovered was so interesting that she turned the research into a book which gives a fascinating insight into the family's forebears as well as giving traditional Italian recipes, many of which are used in the shop's highly regarded restaurant.

Both Mary and Philip's families come from the Abruzzo area of Italy where the way of life in the hamlets at the turn of last century was virtually unchanged from Roman times.

Mary's forebears on her Italian side came from Picinisco, 725 metres above sea level, high in the Abruzzi mountains, south of Rome.

Philip's forebears came from Fontitune, a hamlet perched a further 275 metres up the mountain. It had a population of around 100, almost all with the same Crolla surname. Their dialect was different from the villagers further down the mountain and bears strong similarities to Roman Latin.

"The Crollas were self sufficient, " points out Mary. "They farmed sheep and grew crops on the little land they had. Vines were grown precariously on the side of the mountain, their roots reaching deep into the sparse earth. In the autumn, the grapes were harvested and piled into large, round wooden tubs. The women climbed in and pressed the grapes, their skirts daringly pulled up above their knees, their feet and ankles stained by the juices.

"Wheat grew with great difficulty on the dry hillside. Any crop was ground and stored, coarse and unhusked in dry sacks.

More successful was corn, an easier crop to grow since Roman times and which was once known as Roman wheat. This was ground into polenta, the basic carbohydrate of the diet.

"The families' main produce was pecorino cheese, made from spring milk from their sheep. It was moulded into rush baskets and laid on slats, turned and checked, maturing as the season progressed. The whey left behind was mixed with rennet collected from a sheep's stomach so that the solid proteins would set to make fresh ricotta. Both these cheeses were in high demand from the villagers down the mountain and had a reputation as the best as far afield as Naples and Rome.

"The houses were built one stacked against the other, most no more than a single room. There was no running water, no sink or toilet. One large high bed was pushed against the wall."

Despite being self sufficient, the villagers were desperately poor and at the end of the 19th century there had already been some attempt to find work in other countries.

Mary's own grandmother, Marietta Di Ciacca, was born in London in 1895, as her parents had tried to find a better life first in Paris, then in London.

Marietta's mother died and the family returned to their Italian village. There she married her cousin Cesidio di Ciacca and their son Giovanni was born on December 23, 1919, the same week the writer DH Lawrence was in the village.

Mary discovered a letter the author had written in the family archives. It is dated December 16, 1919, and describes Picinisco as "staggeringly primitive".

"The chickens wander in, the ass is tied to the doorpost and makes his droppings on the doorstep and brays his head off.

"The natives are 'in costume' - brigands with skin sandals and white-swathed strapped legs, women in sort of swiss bodices and white shirts, with full sleeves - very handsome, speaking a perfectly unintelligible dialect and no Italian."

He adds as a footnote that "the brigand men are by no means fierce: the women are the fierce half of the breed".

The handsomeness of Mary's forebears had been noted previously by visiting artists and by the end of the 19th century Picinisco had gained a reputation as a source of handsome boys to work as artists' models.

Their popularity was due to the fact that the village had been isolated for centuries and the features of the inhabitants bore a strong resemblance to their Roman ancestors. Famous artists like Holman Hunt used the boys as models and by the turn of the century, several were working in Britain.

This gave hope to others that they too could improve their lot by making money abroad.

In Fontitune, Philip's great grandfather Crolla had already tried his hand in London, selling ice cream on the streets. He had some success but returned home.

His sons, including Alfonso, Philip's grandfather, decided it was their turn to try to make their fortunes and with very little money, set out on foot with the intention of trying Edinburgh or Glasgow.

In her book, Dear Francesca: A Cookbook With Love, Mary says: "They walked down the mountain. They walked to the coast and then along the Appian Way to Rome, following the route of Roman soldiers who may have been their ancestors. They walked northwards past Genoa through France and to Calais. They may have played their shepherd's pipes, taken odd jobs in return for bed and bread, or hitched lifts on passing carts when they could.

"They met cousins or friends in London, took rest and shelter and walked on. They probably met up with more compatriots who had settled in Manchester. They stopped, rested and walked on. They walked over the Border. They walked to Edinburgh."

Alfonso's first job was with relations in an ice-cream shop in Leith and after a while he had enough money to send for his wife, Maria, and son, Domenico, to join them.

Meanwhile in Picinisco, Marietta heard about the Crolla brothers' achievements and encouraged her husband to try his luck too.

Alfonso arranged for Cesidio to work in partnership with this brother-in-law in Cockenzie and in 1923, Marietta joined him with their two small children, one of whom was Giovanni (later to be known as Johnny), Mary's father.

Mary and Philip's grandfathers' lives were closely linked both in Italy and then in Scotland. In 1934, Alfonso went into partnership with a continental food importer in Edinburgh and founded Valvona and Crolla Ltd; Cesidio was the first to wish him well.

There are few details about any forebears before either Mary or Philip's great grandparents, but the couple do know that life in the villages was pretty much unchanged from Roman times and even possibly before.

"Philip's uncle, Victor Crolla, did two years of research in the national library and found that the dialect words of the area have really strong connections to the Latin used in Roman times, " points out Mary.

"For example, crustole, the name for deep fried pastries cooked at Christmas, is a dialect word with direct Latin roots. The Italian for pastries similar to these and which are made in other areas is chiacchiere.

"There is an intriguing reference to 'crustulum' on an ancient inscription in the Villa Silvestri in Arca di Far Sabina. It was removed there from the forum of the vanished Roman-Sabine city of Curi.

"The crustulum, or clustrum, was a holiday treat distributed to the Roman people, together with 'mulsum' (honeyed wine), on important holidays during the December to January holiday period, " says Mary.

"My mother's mother was from another village and she calls the same recipes different things. The dialect words used in Fontitune could go back as far as Etruscan times."

Many of the recipes that Mary uses in Valvona and Crolla are unchanged through the generations, so even these could go back to the days of the Etruscans.

"I find that charming, " she says. "It has been an exciting and emotional journey researching my family tree. It has made me even more proud of my family but happy to have my Scottish roots as well. I think we got the best of both worlds."

Dear Francesca: A Cookbook With Love by Mary Contini, Ebury Press.

BIOGRAPHY

COOKERY writer and broadcaster Mary Contini is the granddaughter of Italian immigrants who moved to Scotland at the beginning of the 20th century.

Born on July 2, 1956 and brought up in Cockenzie, East Lothian, Contini was one of eight children.

Continistudied biological sciences at Edinburgh University and later a business course at Heriot-Watt.

In 1983, she became a partner in the family-run delicatessen, Valvona and Crolla, in Edinburgh.

She has written four books on food and cookery and has also presented the television series Scotland's Larder, for Scottish TV and Grampian.