Pineapple on your pizza, sure. Anchovies, no.
You want pineapple on your pizza? Sure, you could get that anywhere. But try asking for anchovies! Nowadays, you get anything on your pizza, from barbeque chicken to kimchi. What is happening to pizza?
Lampadusa, The Last Leopard
The Many Saints of Newark
In Praise of Labor
Anti-Italianism is Alive & Well
I was called a Guinea this week. I never had that happen before. I was also told that when the Nazis marched into Italy Hitler told them to not defecate (that was not the word he used) in the streets because he wanted to starve the Italians. That one was a real head-scratcher for me. Were Germans in the habit of doing something like that in the streets? I also wondered if the Germans ever really marched into Italy as they did in France or Poland. I thought the two countries were allies. I guess you shouldn’t expect a bigot’s comments to make any sense.
Does this country have room for the Italian-American?
A funny thing happened to me the other day at lunch while I was eating a cobb salad. I realized that it was a great example of the United States of America. When I made this observation to my son-in-law, Ryan, he said it is the old question of whether the United States was a melting pot or a salad.
So, you’re Italian-American. What’s the big deal?
Everyone should be proud of their cultural heritage, even if you aren’t Italian-American. After all, not everyone can be an Italian-American. I guess my bias is pretty obvious. Someone once asked me if I could choose to be anything other than Italian-American, what would I like to be. I was shocked by such a horrible thought. The Italian-American culture is the confluence of two of the greatest civilizations ever to have existed. I wouldn’t want to be anything other than what I am.
Nothing Against St. Patrick, but I’m Italian, give me The Feast of St. Joseph
Let me start by saying that I have no animosity towards the Irish. Even though my first wife was Irish, I hold no grudge against all of those from the Emerald Isle. I even think that Lucky Charms are magically delicious. However, I am not Irish even on St. Patrick’s Day.
Italian Americans & The Catholic Church
I am a survivor of fourteen years of Catholic education. I am still waiting for my lapel pin to come in the mail. Although I may joke about surviving the notorious nuns, I did receive a very good education in those years. One thing that I didn’t understand back then was the relationship between the Italian American community and the Catholic Church.
A Voice for Columbus
The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. It is so easy to attack the dead, to misquote, to misrepresent motive, to manipulate the representation of past events.
Why are you wearing a pepper?
One of the reasons for this blog is to dispel many of the Italian and Italian-American myths. It is troubling to me, therefore, when I fulfill some of the more common or even more crass stereotypes. Yes, I talk with my hands, and I have been known to greet someone with a “Hey, how ya’ doin,” although not as suggestively as Joey Tribbiani. What can I say? Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Marco Polo Introduced the Chinese to Chop Sticks
Years ago, I had an acquaintance who was from China. He insisted that the Chinese invented spaghetti. He believed in the myth that Macro Polo introduced Italians to it when he returned from his travels. It did not matter what I told him; he was told this all his life. So, as far he was concerned, it was the absolute truth. Remembering the adage attributed to Mark Twain, it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled, I gave up. Instead I told him that most people don’t know that Marco Polo introduced the Chinese to chopsticks.
If Italian-Americans aren’t Italian, what are they?
When I was a kid growing up in an Italian neighborhood in New York, we used to say there were two kinds of people in the world; Italians and those that wanted to be. When my daughters were just children, I told them they were very lucky little girls; not everyone gets to be Italian. Then I made my first trip to Italy. I started developing acquaintances with people born and raised in Italy, Italian Italians, not Italian-Americans. I was shocked by what I had learned. My daughters and I were not lucky. We were members of the second group, those that wanted to be. We weren’t Italian!
Are Italian-Americans Italian? Redux
I hate to admit being wrong, to publicly change my opinion, especially when that opinion is dear to me. I guess I could just cite the adage; to admit that you were wrong is to declare that you are wiser now than you were before. Maybe I should have started this post by telling you how much more wise I now am than I was in the past. See how I turned that around?
Is Fettuccini Alfredo a Traditional Italian Dish?
It is amazing to me, a guy who grew up in an Italian-American community in upstate New York, how much I learned about being Italian when I left that community to live among the medighans of Los Angeles. I didn’t realize that real Italians went around saying for-ged-aboud-it and we didn’t call it sauce, but gravy, a debate to be addressed in another post.
Sauce, Gravy, or Dante? (Part 1)
In 1954, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Italian author and historian of Italian literature asked; “what is the glory of Dante compared to spaghetti?” He went on to observe “spaghetti has entered many American homes where the name of Dante is never pronounced.”
Sauce, Gravy, or Dante? (Part 2)
Dante Alighieri; author of The Divine Comedy, Father of the Italian Language, philosopher, theologian, statesman. In my previous post, I make the point that to truly understand Italian and Italian-American culture you need to understand Dante. That post focuses on Dante the poet, the author of The Divine Comedy.
The Feast of Seven Fishes, Why It is Important
For many Italian-Americans, the high point of Christmas is the Christmas Eve Feast of Seven Fishes. This custom, however, has a special added significance for me personally. It was my father’s last meal. On Christmas Eve 1977, after enjoying the traditional meal my mother had prepared, my father went to bed where he fell into a wakeless sleep. Since then, the Feast of the Seven Fishes was more than part of my Italian-American heritage, but a remembrance of my father.
Befana & the Epiphany
I love being Italian, well technically Italian-American. There are so many things about our cultural inheritance that enrich our lives. The food. The traditions. The music. From pasta fazool to Verdi’s La Traviata, I love it all. One of these traditions is the observance of the Epiphany and Befana. Growing up in the United States, the Epiphany passed without notice, with no mention of Befana.