They call it a “lifeline in a box”—a care package packed with flavors from home. It’s almost always filled with food, the kind of food that comes “from down South” and makes its way “up North.” As one student put it in a standout college thesis that’s now been turned into a book, “The care package from home is home itself, traveling north.”

The author, Mattia, is an anthropology student in Turin, Piedmont. He studied the cultural meaning of these packages through the lens of his friend and fellow student Martina, who, like him, is from Puglia.