Posted by Goddess Marquesa July 31, 2012
NOTE- This article is being passed around over the internet lately. I have no idea who wrote it.
Many of us Inraptured folks may be too young to remember the kinds of “good old days” described in the following article.
But I am a child of the 60’s and much of what’s written below rings true for My upbringing. What I don’t remember My parents and grandparents lovingly told Me all about it.Would you share with Me your roots and what childhood traditions you hold dear.
If they’re coupled with food and fun events shared with family…all the better! 🙂
I feel your sentimental and candid replies will certainly stimulate My curious mind and open heart.
Growing Up Italian Style……
(Whether you’re Siciliano, Calabrese, Napolitano or Toscano)
I am sure for most second generation Italian American children who grew up
in the 30s, 40’s, 50’s & 60’s there was a definite distinction between us and them.
We were Italians, everybody else, the Irish, the Germans, the Polish, etc., they
were Americans.
I was well into adulthood before I realized I was an American. I had been
born American and lived here all my life, but Americans were people who
ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on mushy white bread.
I had no animosity towards them, it’s just I thought ours was the better
way with our bread man, egg man, vegetable man, the chicken man, to name a
few of the peddlers who came to our neighborhoods.
We knew them, they knew us.
Americans went to the A&P market.
It amazed me that some friends and classmates on Thanksgiving and
Christmas ate only turkey with stuffing, potatoes, and cranberry sauce.
We had turkey, but only after antipasto, soup, lasagna, pasta, meatballs,
sausage, pork, caponata and salad!In case someone came in who didn’t like turkey, we also had a roast of
beef.
Soon after we were eating fruits, nuts, pastries and homemade cookies
sprinkled with little colored things.
This is where you learned to eat a seven course meal between noon and four
PM, how to handle hot chest nuts and put peaches in wine.
Italians live a romance with food.
Sundays we would wake up to the smell of garlic and onions frying in olive
oil.
We always had macaroni and sauce.
Sunday would not be Sunday without going to mass. Of course you couldn’t
eat before mass because you had to fast before receiving communion. We
knew when we got home we’d find meatballs frying, and nothing tasted
better than newly cooked meatballs with crisp bread dipped into a pot of
hot gravy (not sauce).
Another difference between them and us was we had gardens.
Not just with flowers, but tomatoes, peppers, basil, lettuce and
‘cucuzza’.
Everybody had a grapevine and fig tree.
In the fall we drank homemade wine arguing over who made the best.
Those gardens thrived because we had something our American friends didn’t
seem to have.
We had Grandparents.
It’s not that they didn’t have grandparents. It’s just they didn’t live in
the same house or street.
We ate with our grandparents, and God forbid we didn’t visit them every
week.
I can still remember my grandfather telling us how he came to America when
he was young, on the ‘boat.’
I’ll never forget the holidays when the relatives would gather at my
grandparents’ house, the women in the kitchen, the men in the living room,
the kids everywhere. I must have fifty cousins. My grandfather sat in the
middle of it all drinking his wine he was so proud of his family and how
well they had done.
When my grandparents died, things began to change.
Family gatherings were fewer and something seemed to be missing.
Although we did get together usually at my mother’s house, I always had
the feeling grandma and grandpa were there.
Its understandable things change.
We all have families of our own and some of us have grandchildren of our
own.
Today we visit once in a while or meet at wakes or weddings.
Other things have also changed.
The old house my grandparents bought is now covered with aluminum or vinyl
siding.
A green lawn covers the soil that grew the tomatoes.
There was no one to cover the fig tree, so it died.
The holidays have changed. We still make family ’rounds’ but somehow
things have become more formal.
The great quantities of food we consumed, without any ill effects, are not
good for us anymore.
Too much starch, too much cholesterol, too many calories in the pastries.
The difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ isn’t so easily defined anymore,
and I guess that’s good.My grandparents were Italian-Italians; my parents were Italian-Americans.
I’m an American and proud of it, just as my grandparents would want me to
be.
We are all Americans now… the Irish, Germans, Polish, all U.S. citizens.
But somehow I still feel a little bit Italian.
Call it culture… call it roots…. I’m not sure what it is.
All I do know is that so many children these days seem to
have been cheated out of a wonderful piece of our heritage.
From time to time I’ve noticed that two seemingly unrelated items draw My thoughts to one subject that intrigues Me. Here’s an example of how this is connected-
