AlmostItalian wants to promote the greening of the Superbowl. We’re not talking about enhancing viewers’ color perceptions of the Indianapolis turf in February. Nor are we referring to greenbacks, the mega-bucks spent on Superbowl ads.

And despite the fact that Superbowl Sunday, when several million flat-screen plasma TVs gobble kilowatts long before the big game gets underway, is probably the least environmentally-friendly event in the entire winter calendar, we aren’t even talking about conservation issues.

As usual, we’re talking about the food, which as any football fan can tell you, is what any Superbowl party is all about. But when we cast a critical eye at the typical Superbowl menu of nachos, seven-layer dips, pimiento-cheddar balls, Buffalo wings, and cocktail franks, we think that most viewers’ tables will be woefully short on leafy things from the produce aisle.

And that’s really a pity, because the clean tastes of salads and crudités are great palate cleansers for all the highly seasoned, gooey favorites that are going to be served whether we like it or not. Of course, if you’re already familiar with our AlmostItalian, style, you know that lots of salads and vegetables do appear amidst our party fare, no matter what the gathering…

However, we admit that all this posturing is but a preamble to what may be our easiest AlmostItalian offering, something so simple it’s actually hard to find a recipe for it.

During our years of food research, we have learned that when there isn’t a trail of recipes, techniques as well as ingredients tend to drop out of sight. So, while providing a recipe for Shredded Iceberg Lettuce Salad may not be on the same level as saving scungilli recipes from extinction, we offer it here as an essential ingredient in many an AlmostItalian sandwich.

This is what generations of short-order countermen in Greek diners and Italian sub shops have made to add zip and crunch to their cold-cut sandwiches. For us at AlmostItalian, the salad’s flavors of red-wine vinegar, olive oil, and marjoram are primal— and should never involve an off-the-shelf envelope of “Italian Herb Seasoning” or a bottle of “Italian dressing.”

Ordinarily, we find iceberg lettuce too bland, but for this salad, the crisp texture of iceberg is essential.

So whether your guests mound their plates with this salad or merely add it as a garnish their Italian beef sandwiches, cheese steaks, or Italian combos, we think Superbowl Sunday is the perfect time to get salad off the sidelines and into the game.

Shredded Iceberg Lettuce Salad

Ingredients:

1 tight head of iceberg lettuce* (about 24 ounces)

Seasonings below are for half a head of lettuce (about 12 ounces)
Double the seasonings if you are using the entire head.

1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons dry marjoram,** finely crumbled
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:

Remove and discard any discolored or loose outer leaves from the head of lettuce.

Place the head on a large cutting board. Hold the head firmly and use a large sharp knife to cut the head in half, from the top to the base.

Hold the half-head, with the flat, cut side against the board. Thinly slice (1/8 inch) the entire lettuce half. Repeat with the 2nd half* if you are using it.

In a large non-reactive bowl, toss the slices to separate them into loosen shreds.

Toss the dry seasonings with the lettuce. (You can complete these steps up to 6 hours before you dress the salad if you cover the bowl and keep it in a cool place.) 30 minutes before serving, sprinkle the shredded lettuce with the vinegar and oil and gently toss to combine.

After 15 minutes, toss again and taste, adjusting the seasonings as needed.

The lettuce will give up some of its liquid and wilt as it sits, but it will still evoke fond memories…

Store any leftover salad in a covered container in the fridge. Even if your team fails to win on Sunday, the salad will be sure to brighten the most ordinary sandwich on a brown-bag Monday.

Although the best-known observance of the Feast of the Seven Fishes is among American-Italians with roots in the Mezzogiorno, the tradition of consuming at least one dish of frutti di mare or pesci on Christmas Eve, for la Cena della Vigilia, is common throughout Italy and, indeed, in any place where Italians reside.

Istanbul Fish Market outside Yeni Cami
Photo copyright © Holly Chase, 2011

Centuries before the Renaissance made Italy a cultural mecca, colonies of Genoese, Venetians, and Amalfitani were established around the eastern Mediterranean and even along the shores of the Black Sea.

While Italian emigration to the Americas and Antipodes was driven most forcibly by poverty, most Italian emigration to other parts of the Mediterranean was propelled by politics, the arts, and commerce. By the early years of the 20th century, before the First World War, over 40,000 Italians inhabited Constantinople. Numerous painters, architects, and the activists Mazzini and Garibaldi all lived in that fabled metropolis that spans Asia and Europe. Many of Italian descent still live today in the city now known as Istanbul.

Each year this cosmopolis, which has developed a taste for pizza and all things Italian—from Amarone to Zinfandel, from anchovies to zeppole—is attracting more Italians and Italian-Americans. Those fortunate enough to live there can do their holiday provisioning at a stall like this, where the daily catch from the Black Sea, Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara, and northern Aegean is on offer.

In the belief that peace and goodwill around the world begin at the table,
Buon Natale & buon appetito or, as the Turks would say, Iyi Noeller ve afiyet olsun.

Earlier this week we marked the 25th anniversary of the publication of Nicholas Pileggi’s Wise Guy. The book is the “as-told-to” memoir of Henry Hill, a real-life gangster in the Luchese family whose crimes  included  what came to be called “The Lufthansa Heist” of 1978.

Prior to writing Wise Guy, Mr. Pileggi had serialized the details of the heist in New York Magazine. Subsequently, Mr. Pileggi, along with Martin Scorcese, turned the book into the screenplay for the iconic movie, Goodfellas.

While we deplore the violence depicted in such films, the Wise Guy anniversary prompted us to contemplate a recurring theme in the cinematic depiction of Italian-Americans. Think about it:  whenever contracts are issued or hits  ordered, more often than not, those discussions  occur around a kitchen table or in a restaurant.

Let’s examine Goodfellas.  Paulie Cicero—the local capo— hosts a cookout in the side yard of his home. The camera zooms in on a spiral of fresh sausage that takes up most of the grill space on a Weber Kettle.  Two dozen guys dressed in sport coats are eating grilled sausage on rolls as Frankie Carbone renders his verdict, “Salsiccia buona.” Good sausage.

Later, we visit members of the crew doing time.  Paulie slices garlic with a single-edge razor blade while Vinnie tends to the Sunday gravy and extolls the virtue of including pork in the meatballs.  Johnny Dio sears steaks in a cast iron pan, and when Paulie orders his cooked medium-rare, Johnny says, “Oh, an aristocrat.”

Henry Hill enters the “cell” with a sack filled with bread, cheese, salume, and wine; Paulie takes a bottle of red and says, “Now we can eat.”

And in the final frame of that sequence, a prison administrator brings the mafiosi a case of ice-packed lobsters.

Fast-forward to Paulie  hosting an extended family dinner so he may admonish Henry Hill to stay away from dealing cocaine.  But, this being a dinner in a gangster flick, that detail seems almost immaterial;  indeed, the red sauce  proves to be more far more important.

In the climax of the movie, Henry Hill—ignoring Paulie’s admonition—is frantically running drug deal errands  as he tries to put together Sunday gravy and veal scallopine at his home. All the while, a black surveillance helicopter hovers above…  We never do see that meal come to the table.

While not all movies with Italian-American characters are about the mob, it’s safe to say that nearly every production that includes more than one Italian cannot ignore food. In fact, the 1996 favorite, Big Night, is all about food. Long before Rachael Ray, Primo, the perfectionist brother, presented his risotto tricolore to a generation of foodie wannabes. And in preparation of the same feast that included the risotto, Primo showed us how to construct timpano, a.k.a. timballo di maccheroni, whose exquisite complexity was lost on dinner guests who’d drunk too much vino while waiting for the no-show guest-of-honor, band-leader Louis Prima.

In a pseudo-gangster comedy—The Freshman—Marlon Brando, as Carmine “Jimmy the Toucan” Sabatini, assumes the role of ‘Don Corleone Plays Vegas,’ presiding over a highly secretive and exclusive gourmet club whose dinner entrées regularly include endangered species.

If you haven’t seen it, let’s just say that the hero of the movie turns out to be a rather large monitor lizard.

The Godfather isn’t so much about food as it is about family. Nevertheless,  with early shots of after-the-party  tables and elaborate floral arrangements, Francis Ford Coppola tells us all we need to know about Connie Corleone’s  lavish wedding banquet.

While the Corleone crew is sitting around the kitchen table discussing grim topics, “Fat Pete” Clemenza takes the opportunity to show Michael Corleone how to make a good tomato sauce. And like a proper mobster, he includes a warning–not to burn the garlic.

Coppola also adds a comedic note to the mayhem when Clemenza, Paulie, and Rocco Lampone drive to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where Rocco clips Paulie. The tension is broken by Clemenza’s oft-quoted and now-classic zinger to Rocco: “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

And while there’s not much focus on the plates when Michael has his fateful dinner meeting with Virgil Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey, Sollozzo does comment that, “The veal here is excellent.”

Like The Godfather, The Pope of Greenwich Village is more about famiglia than food. But as the movie opens, the main characters, Charlie and Paulie, are both working at a restaurant, Charlie as the maitre d’ and Paulie as a waiter. After they’ve been fired for tampering with dinner checks, they wander around Little Italy, where Paulie buys a large bastone, what appears to be more than a pound of prosciutto, and an equal amount of provolone. The guys walk down to the Hudson River, where Paulie proceeds to make a huge sandwich and eat the whole thing.

In another scene, a corrupt police detective, Bunky Ritter, meets “Bed Bug” Eddie Grant at a restaurant where Bed Bug is eating a dish of calamare in tomato sauce. Bunky asks why Bed Bug hasn’t ordered his usual scungilli, to which Bed Bug answers, “I got a sour stomach. I’m trying to eat light for a while.”

But the most food-oriented gangster show of all time is not a production from the silver screen, but one made for the 55-inch LCD:  Many a commentator has noted that food takes up at least 50% of each episode of The Sopranos. If the commentators are correct, after six seasons of highly acclaimed production for HBO, that 50% amounts to a full three seasons of Italian food during prime time.

A typical scene might feature Tony and Carmella dining in with their offspring, Meadow and Anthony Junior; monosyllabic interchanges with the kids never distract viewers from Carmella’s baked ziti.  We may see Tony, Bobby Baccala, and Paulie Walnuts taking their espresso at Satriale’s Pork Store. On a less innocent tack, Tony might invite Christopher to share some bracciole at the Bada Bing Club where others discuss more sordid matters.

Without a single gangster, one movie puts the fun back in dysfunctional. Moonstruck, capturing the spirit of the Italian-American household like no other film, has earned a special place in our hearts.

Two of the main characters earn their living in the food industry: Rose Castorini’s brother, Raymond Capomaggi owns an alimentaria. Loretta’s ultimate love interest, Ronny Cammareri is a professional bread baker.

The Castorini family kitchen is the central stage for this film made long before the Food Network came into existence. We watch as Rose, with methodical economy, prepares breakfast. She cuts a hole into the center of a slice of Italian bread before she fries it in olive oil and then cracks an egg into the hole. She tops it all with roasted red pepper. How easy is that?

Other Moonstruck scenes take place in a neighborhood restaurant where the clientele are on a first-name basis with the waiters. Loretta advises her then-fiance Johnny not to order the fish before he leaves on a flight to Palermo. Instead, she orders him a plate of manicotti, saying, “That will give you a base for your stomach. You know, you eat that oily fish, you go up in the air, halfway to Sicily you’ll be green and your hands will be sweating.”

In another scene, in Johnny’s brother’s apartment, Loretta and Ronny have the following exchange:

Ronny: What’s that smell?
Loretta: I’m making you a steak.
Ronny: I don’t want it.
Loretta: You’ll eat it.
Ronny: I like it well done.
Loretta: You’ll eat this one bloody, it’ll feed your blood.

Finally, when Loretta comes home to tell the family about her engagement to Johnny Cammareri,  one brief exchange with her father leaves no doubt about where  Italians make their executive decisions:

Loretta: Pop, I got news.
Cosmo: Alright, let’s go into the kitchen.

Central to so many films is The Kitchen, or more broadly, any place where food is shared. Tables are where marriages, births, and deaths are announced, celebrated or mourned. They are where wise guys put out contracts and settle vendettas, but also where set aside their gritty lives to enjoy a home-cooked meal with their extended families.

Whatever unsavory things fictional or real-life wise guys may do, we have to give them their due as spokesmen for a wonderful culinary tradition. Their stories keep alive the legacy of their forbears who landed in America, where most found that, for the first time, they had more than enough to eat.

The generous culture that grew out of the first Italian immigrants’ gratitude for such abbondanza is what some call Wise Guy Food, and it’s what we investigate and affectionately record as “Almost Italian.”

The charming 2006 Italian film Nuovomondo (released in the U.S. as The Golden Door) is a mixture of images and themes—gritty southern Italian poverty and superstition softened by romance, magic realism, and hope.

Photo courtesy of http://cardcow.com

The film begins with Sicilian peasants awaiting a sign from heaven as to whether they should emigrate from their impoverished village. Tipping the balance in favor of exodus are a few postcards from paesani who have already made their passage to the New World (Nuovomondo). On one, enormous coins hang from the branches of a tree. On another, gargantuan vegetables dwarf farmers trying to get them to market.

Photo courtesy of http://cardcow.com

We wondered if the postcards were a contemporary product of Photoshop or if cards like those had ever been printed, sold, and sent.

Photo courtesy of http://cardcow.com

Seek and ye shall find…and we found hundreds printed between the 1890′s and the end of the First World War. Since all are labeled in English, it’s quite clear that they were made to indulge domestic regional pride and the American taste for whimsy and “tall tales.” (Think of the giant pumpkin and livestock competitions that persist today at state fairs.) The growth of private motorcar ownership and American tourism also expanded a market for these cards.

Photo courtesy of http://cardcow.com

We can only guess how many of these images were mailed abroad. But as we’ve noted, the Italian immigrants had a sense of humor. Expressing themselves through food as they did, might they have thought colorful chrome prints of farm bounty could tempt the rest of the family back in the Mezzogiorno to get on the boat and join them here in America? We’ll never know for sure, but it is no wonder that an Italian film-maker found images like these irresistible.

You’re making your list, you’re checking it twice, and still you’ll forget the Arborio rice…

The salt cod soaks in the pantry with care in hopes that your relatives soon will be there… If this is what’s running though your brain, the baccalà fumes may have gone to your head. It’s time to take a break from the kitchen.

Hey Dino! Secondo! Vinnie and Sebbi! Where’s Tony—and Guido? Where’s Rocco? Where’s Beppe?

If we haven’t spared the reindeer, you might imagine that nothing here at AlmostItalian.com is wholly sacred. And you’d be correct. ‘Tis the season of song, verse, and parody.

So, with more than a little license in both spelling and accent, we present our Almost Italian Song of the Seven (or More) Fishes. As any Vegas performer will tell you, it’s all in the timing; the rest is easy. You know the tune… we’ll hum and provide the recipes.

13 Nonne Singing *

On the first day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
A big tray of An-ti-pas-ti

On the second day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Cherry Pepper Shooters
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the third day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
FIVE BAC—CA—LAAAA…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Tuna on Crostini,
FIVE BACCALÀ…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Scampi con Linguine,
Tuna on Crostini,
FIVE BACCALÀ…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Mussels Posillipo,
Scampi con Linguine,
Tuna on Crostini,
FIVE BACCALÀ…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Lobster Fra Diavolo,
Mussels Posillipo,
Scampi con Linguine,
Tuna on Crostini,
FIVE BACCALÀ…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Octopus in brodo,
Lobster Fra Diavolo,
Mussels Posillipo,
Scampi con Linguine,
Tuna on Crostini,
FIVE BACCALÀ…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my nonna served to me…
Fried calamari,
Octopus in brodo,
Lobster Fra Diavolo,
Mussels Posillipo,
Scampi con Linguine,
Tuna on Crostini,
FIVE BACCALÀ…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my nonna forced on me…
Digestivi di Campari,
Fried calamari,
Octopus in brodo,
Lobster Fra Diavolo,
Mussels Posillipo,
Scampi con Linguine,
Tuna on Crostini,
FIVE BACCALÀ…
Clams Oreganata,
Eels and Scungilli,
(Yes,we eat them–really!)
Cherry Pepper Shooters,
And a big tray of Antipasti.

Always a focus among Italian-Americans, the kitchen isn’t merely center-stage during year-end holidays, it becomes the stage. During the latter half of December, everything revolves around cooking. Among families sticking to the “old ways,” desserts other than fresh fruit tend to be reserved for special occasions. So it’s noteworthy that in the weeks around the winter solstice, sugar is measured out—not in spoonfuls—but in pounds. Most of the sweets created are not for a single family’s consumption; those trays of cookies, pastries, candies, and other confections are made to be given to everyone from the mailman and the upstairs neighbors to the parish priest, your children’s home-room teachers, and the plumber who came after-hours the Friday following Thanksgiving when the dishwasher choked on a chunk of ziti al forno.

Holiday Abbondanza at Piccolo Market
Photo Copyright © 2010, Skip Lombardi

Skip’s recollections (Middletown, Connecticut):

On the day before Christmas, my grandparents held open house beginning around 4:00 p.m. For two or three evenings beforehand, my mother, grandmother and aunts would have spent hours to make traditional southern Italian sweets, like struffoli, giugiulena, and cookies decorated with multicolored sprinkles.

The day of the party, my grandfather spent the morning in the kitchen preparing his signature Stimparata, Sicilian olive salad, and as well as at least three different schiacciate: one with a broccoli filling, another with potatoes, and my favorite—a stuffing of veal that had been stewed with onions and white wine. As the morning blended into afternoon, a dusty bottle of Seagram’s 7 Crown found its way to the kitchen counter along with a quart of ginger ale, and an unlabeled gallon bottle of homemade red wine.

In the hour before guests arrived, my grandmother slid a sheet-pan of her Cudduruni into the oven. Then, she fried a few dozen slices of Italian bread in olive oil; each of these crostini would be adorned with a dollop of ricotta and half an oil-cured black olive, or perhaps a fillet of anchovy and some capers.

As the first guests arrived, a large wooden bowl filled with assorted whole nuts would be strategically stationed to accommodate those who enjoyed labor-intensive snacking.

As evening fell, my grandmother’s brother would arrive proudly bearing a cassata alla Siciliana from one of the large Italian bakeries on Franklin Avenue in Hartford. Around 7:00 p.m, my grandmother would pass around a tray of sliced cassata. This would remind the guests that it was time to head down the hill to the Methodist Church to watch the Christmas Pageant. The party was winding down…

What Noonie (as I called her ) didn’t mention was that for anyone who felt peckish after the pageant, there would still be some veal schiaciatta, cassata, and “una lachrima” of grappa….

Holly’s recollections ( New Britain, Connecticut):

My dentist father, whose own heritage was Polish, had a lot of Italian patients who always seemed to have emergencies just before Christmas. Someone would lose a filling biting into an unpitted cherry in the panforte or crack a crown on a lozenge of giugiulena. In fact, I don’t ever recall my dad coming home before 8:00 p.m. in the days leading up to Christmas. But there was an upside: all the Italians sent him home with gorgeous, edible gifts. Our dining room sideboard sparkled with red and green cellophane-wrapped platters of struffoli, sugar-dusted wandi (guanti), glazed dried fruits, frosted cookies, fruitcake, Jordan almonds, and torrone. No one, including my parents, worried about the irony in giving these things to a dentist with four children. Two patients in particular, a pair of ladies who ran the local hardware store, always had my father stop by for a glass of wine and maybe a sampling of Lasagne before sending him off with their annual tribute that included delicate anise-scented pizzelle and a magnificent double-crusted Torta di Ricotta (with an intriguing layer of unsweetened cocoa powder). I was particularly fond of their delicious, but rock-hard, Giugiulena made from sesame-seeds, almonds, and honey. Eventually, I was old enough to wonder how many patients those Sicilian delights had probably sent to my father.

Traditional holiday inventory at Piccolo Market
Photo Copyright © 2010, Skip Lombardi

Custom-made gift baskets at Piccolo Market
Photo Copyright © 2010, Holly Chase

While we hope that some of you will be scenting your homes with citrus rind, bitter almond, cinnamon, and butter, for those who lack the time or skill to craft these treats, there’s some buona fortuna for gourmets and anyone homesick for the of the Little Italys of yore. Whether you’d like to give or receive them, the seasonal sweets as well as all the usual temptations of great Italian-American markets are now available here in Sarasota: we want to recommend Piccolo Market in Gulf Gate, both for its ebullient atmosphere as well as the quality of its inventory.

Smell the olive oil and oregano. Listen to the Calabrian, Sicilian, and Italian banter as you indulge in overstuffed sandwiches on crusty bread or luxuriate with an espresso and freshly filled cannoli (Eat in or take-out. Delivery and catering services available.)

“Eccolo, our funghi porcini have just come in… The chestnuts should be here tomorrow. Have you tried these Sinatra tomatoes? They’re so sweet, I use them in my marinara….”

Replenish your pantry with pasta, lupini, salted chick peas, and giardiniera. Step around the pyramids of extra virgin olive oil and cardboard cartons in Warholesque stacks. At this time of year, the aisles are narrowed by just-delivered cases of olives and pallets of panettone. The owners, Antonio and Josphine, apologize for the tight space and for running off to pick up a delayed shipment of baccalà.

Want to cook for your friends? Pick up Piccolo Market’s own pizza dough, which they make from imported Italian “OO,” flour. Choose from a score of different brands of imported, canned tomatoes and prepared sauces. Add some fresh mozzarella made by Antonio’s mother-in-law…

Beautiful packaging– and a little antacid after all that abbondanza
Photo Copyright © 2010, Holly Chase

Anchovies, tuna di Genova, a wedge of real Parmigiano, some sopressata, a little truffle oil, a package of arborio rice—all are good things to have your own larder, and they make welcome presents. Josephine has beautifully arranged gift baskets ready to go or she can help you select things for one you make up yourself. So many of the jars, tins, and boxes have such graphically seductive labels that they need no wrapping at all.

Whatever you do, don’t overlook the packages of Josephine’s homemade pizzelle, as fresh and fragile as snowflakes.

One picture is indeed worth a thousand words, so to keep this blog post at a reasonable length and give you a chance to get on with your own cooking and shopping, we’ll let our photo essay speak for itself. Click here to see some of Piccolo Market’s abbondanza. The place is the real deal and worth the trip if you live anywhere between Tampa and Naples.

http://piccolomarket.com/
Piccolo Italian Market & Deli
2128 Gulf Gate Drive
Sarasota, FL 34231
(941) 923-2202 Fax: (941) 923-7760

Open Monday – Saturday 10am to 6pm
(Closed Sunday)

Photo: Source Unknown

If you’ve been reading AlmostItalian.com for any length of time, you know our penchant for analyzing dishes—deconstructing their names, techniques, and ingredients while tracing their geographic origins. But we’re not the only cookery writers doing this…

Last week Matt Lee & Ted Lee, better known as the Lee Brothers to fans of fare from south of the Mason-Dixon Line, reminded us that Italian culinary influences in America are sometimes more subtle than we suspect.

We were delighted to read their New York Times article, an exhaustive but light-hearted examination and remake of a complex poultry stuffing recipe once jotted down by Marilyn Monroe. The Lee boys managed to trace the probable origins of the recipe back to the thrice-wed starlet’s second set of in-laws—the Sicilian family of first-generation American and baseball legend, Joe DiMaggio. Joe and Marilyn were married in 1954, a union that lasted less than a year but whose culinary effects seem to have persisted.

Among the ingredients that gave the Lees some clues were oregano (not too common an American ingredient in the 1950′s unless you had an Italian connection) along with the combination of pine nuts, chestnuts, and raisins—very Sicilian (as well as very eastern Mediterranean: Greek and Arab influence lives on in Sicilian kitchens).

The casual addition of a “1 handful” of “Parmisan” [sic] cheese reminds us how our grandmothers measured and that U.S. food manufacturers were catering to Italians with ready-to-use products. What better way to enrich a holiday stuffing than to toss in grated cheese? Most Siciliani would never have tasted Parmigiano; southern Italian grating cheeses (such as pecorino) were almost always made from sheep’s milk. But Progresso and Kraft gave cooks with roots in the impoverished southern provinces opportunities to express their pan-Italian soul with one of America’s most abundant agricultural commodities.

What reinforces the Sicilian link for us is the use of bread as the main ingredient in the stuffing. This wouldn’t seem unusual, except that sourdough bread (in this case, from San Francisco) is specified. Of all the Italians who landed on American shores, none revered bread more deeply than the Sicilians—many of whom left Sicily too destitute to have ever considered pasta a staple.

In 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement *, a book we’ll discuss in more depth within a future post, author Jane Ziegelman highlights this point in her profile of Sicilian New Yorkers who would have been contemporaries of the immigrant DiMaggios:

Finally the Lee Brothers clinch their argument in favor of Italian influence by pointing out that Marilyn’s recipe begins with the scrawl: “No Garlic”—an omission that stands as a poignant testimony to how immigrants might forgo a favorite flavor as they struggled to assimilate into mainstream America.

While we think Marylin Monroe’s stuffing recipe sounds pretty good, in our heart of hearts, we know that we (along with the DiMaggios) would have preferred to add some garlic and peperoncini sautéed in a little olive oil. But don’t take our word for it—read the recipe and decide for yourself.

We think you’ll agree that it’s almost—but not quite—Italian.

* 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman

* Publisher: Harper Collins; 1 edition (June 1, 2010)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0061288500
* ISBN-13: 978-0061288500b

Mid-August, and the mercury rises. It’s Ferragosto in Italy, when anyone with legitimate vacation time (or a clever excuse) heads for the beach. Very few points on the Italian peninsula are more than 75 miles from the Mediterranean, so even if it’s only an afternoon beneath a striped umbrella, this is indeed the season to savor la dolce vita.

Italian Street Fair: Washington, DC, 1912
(Note the wine fiaschi hanging in the tent opening, just above the violinist!)

Third- and fourth-generation Italian-Americans may not recognize the term “Ferragosto,” derived from the pre-Christian Feriae Augusti. These mid-month holidays, named for the Roman emperor Augustus, marked a brief lull in the cycle of agricultural labor, when the rains of autumn were still weeks ahead and the full harvest was not yet underway. But to assure that the bounty of summer would continue through the fall, Romans honored fertility deities with offerings of vegetables, fruits, and sheaves of grain.

Early Christians believed that the Virgin Mary’s resurrection and entry into heaven occurred on the 15th of August. Christianity superimposed the celebration of Mary’s ascent (assunta/assumption) over the pagan worship of the the virgin goddess, Diana. Thus, the Feast of the Assumption took on much of the color of the earlier rites.

Hundreds of religious festivals of Christian and pre-Christian origin still take place throughout the year in Italy. Many are extremely localized, commemorating a specific historical event or intercession by a patron saint to save the population from flood or famine. Early Italian immigrants to America maintained many of these festivals wherever their paesani were in sufficient numbers to stage the processions, sing the songs, and prepare the foods significant to the occasion.

However, as Italians in America assimilated, Napolitani married Pugliese; Sicilians worked among Calabrese and French Canadians; Marchese went to church with Hungarians and Poles. The Catholic calendar was still observed, but practices changed in America. Festivals needed legions of volunteers… Parades required municipal permits… Church auxiliaries and cultural organizations like the Sons of Italy and Knights of Columbus needed to reach beyond their ethnic neighborhoods to raise funds for their charitable projects. New England’s Portuguese fishermen had a Blessing of the Fleet—so did the Italians. In a small town, two or more distinct groups often supported the same church. Gradually, lines between immigrant communities softened.

Across North America, the descendants of Italian immigrants continue to celebrate their heritage by organizing street fairs, especially in summer, when days are long and food vendors can count on a steady stream of Italophile customers to snack their way through the games of chance, musical performances, and other cultural displays.

For the devout, the Feast of the Assumption is still a significant day in the liturgical year, and many parishioners attend Mass before the festivities. But for the vast majority of festival attendees, saints and symbols have faded in importance. Increasingly, the advertising for Italian-American summer festivals has become less specific: Is it the Feast of St. Rosalia? St. Donato? St. Rocco? St. Sebastian? Or of Our Lady of the Assumption? Many cities and congregations have simply opted to hold the all-inclusive Festa Italiana.

New Jersey Festa Poster

Meanwhile, we hope that it’s not one more sign of global warming that Arthur Avenue, the Little Italy of the Bronx, plans to hold its own 2010 “Ferragosto” on September 12th! Figurati!

Blurred dates aside, what has remained constant at America’s Italian festivals is the emphasis on foods consumed by slowly ambulating crowds. The offerings of mobile kitchens—sausage and peppers, fried calamare, and clam “stuffies”—say more about Boston or Providence than Italy. Modern Italians are surprised that we will stand to eat cheese-laden slices of pizza, behavior far more representative of Cleveland or New York than of Italy, where pizza tends to be a light, sit-down meal.

Modern Italian-American Festa

Sweets have have stayed closer to their Italian antecedents. No self-respecting Roman or Palermitano making an evening passeggiata would want to wolf down chocolate-dipped cannoli or guzzle iced cappucino. But both he an his American cousins can manage their stroll while enjoying freshly fried zeppole dusted with sugar, a cup of lemon granita, or a cone of strawberry gelato.

Fried Dough

Revival of the Quaint: An Italian Ice Vendor

Whether you’re in Ischia or Indianapolis, during Ferragosto, it’s all about the food of nostalgia and the sweet slowness of summer.

As our readers know, we revel in culinary trivia, crumbs we find in the most unexpected places. This morning, on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition/Saturday, we caught Scott Simon in a flight simulator of the Space Shuttle.

Italian Peninsula & Sicily as seen from space (photo courtesy NASA)

On the voyage slated to be its last ( February 2011), there will be an Italian astronaut. (There will be another on the Space Station, with which the shuttle will dock). The ever-puckish Mr. Simon inquired as to whether the presence of Italians might improve the fare on board. According to the astronaut interviewee, NASA has provisioned its Space Shuttle astronauts with lasagne for some twenty years…

He didn’t elaborate as to whether NASA’s recipe was northern style (with besciamella) or southern style (with ricotta).

Meanwhile, we wondered if NASA make their own marinara and what zero-gravity does to a layered casserole… But these are insignificant questions since the morphology of Italian food has long been challenged right here on Planet Earth:

Surely this UK product is stranger than any meal NASA has ever launched.

Honestly, we were just tickled to hear today’s NPR mention of extra-terrestrial pasta.

Our thanks to Scott Simon for uncovering one more example of the amazing trajectory of Italian food in America—and beyond. While we’re certain no one from Emilia-Romagna, the Mezzogiorno, or Boston’s North End would recognize Nonna NASA’s version of lasagne, this delightful segment confirms that the culinary reach of Italy is universal—indeed, out of this world.

March 19th is the official date to honor St. Joseph, aka San Giuseppe, the carpenter-husband of Mary and earthly father of Christ. While the Festa di San Giuseppe is a major holiday in the historically Catholic countries of the Mediterranean and beyond, nowhere is its observation more serious than in Sicily and among the Sicilian diaspora of North America.

Saint Joseph’s Altar, New Orleans
Photo Courtesy Bart Evans

As with most Italian-American holidays, food plays a major role. Legends relate that the intercession of San Giuseppe saved the population of Sicily from famine. To commemorate their salvation and display their gratitude, Sicilians placed offerings of food on an altar where it was blessed before being distributed to the poor.

The custom has spread and elaborate versions of the altar or tavola (the St. Joseph “table”) are annually recreated in Los Angeles, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and several towns in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas—all communities enriched by Sicilian immigration.

Once a major port of entry for Italians, New Orleans manages, in typical fashion, to make its festa all-inclusive, and anyone who cares to participate, including later immigrants like Vietnamese and Latin Americans, observes the mid-Lent holiday. It’s tamer and more introspective than Mardi Gras just past, and less somber than Good Friday around the corner. Falling in the season of Lent, the traditional offerings often include meatless treats like St. Joseph’s Pants, deep-fried chickpea-filled cavazune, the Sicilian word for calzone. (Chickpeas and fava beans were Sicilian staples long before Christianity and remain so today.)

Adherence to Lenten abstinence has changed: today’s devout are more likely to give up reruns of Sex in the City or text-messaging than McDonald’s. It should not surprise anyone that barbecue is now a component of a Texan St. Joseph’s celebration featured in the film, Texas Tavola.

Of all the altar’s adornments, most spectacular are the breads (cudureddi*) and pastries in the forms of fish, crosses, crowns-of-thorns, hearts, doves, lambs and other Christian symbols. Some are extremely labor-intensive and so elaborate that they are never meant to be consumed. Rather, they are shellacked and kept from year-to-year. Others, including more modern confections that one would recognize from any Italian christening or bridal shower, are given away to guests and the needy. Cooks gather weeks ahead of the holiday to bake, and the film Texas Tavola pays particular attention to the selfless camaradarie of those who literally spend weeks in the kitchen, and for whom cooking is a devotional act.

Whether one shares the pilgrim road to Santiago, joins a Habitat for Humanity building crew, or dons an apron for two weeks of making biscotti, the intent is to lose oneself in a collective act of contemplation, fellowship, and generosity. Not a bad thing, and a much better way to connect with one’s community than Facebook.

An intriguing website with a Virtual St. Joseph Altar and the film, Texas Tavola, provide excellent photos and descriptions of the holiday in greater detail.

Although it helps to be Italian-American,Texan, and Catholic, you don’t have to be any of these to be deeply moved by the townspeople depicted in the film Texas Tavola.