Homeless and starving, the Corrente children traipsed through the mountains of central Italy during World War II, foraging for food and shelter, going so far as to rely on leaves for sustenance and suckling from sugar-dusted towels soaked in whatever water they could find — this for some semblance of flavor.

Angioletta Pavan, grieving the loss of her sister and Weslaco restaurateur, Giovanna Milano, recalled this unsettling tale of survival in which the descendants of Mariano and Amalia Corrente fled their Monte Cassino home — upon the war reaching their doorstep in the early 1940s — and suffered a famine.