Anyone who has ever known me would assume I was lying if I said I went to a nightclub for Valentine's Day. I don't know which they would find more unbelievable: the "night" or the "club." But Maria Rossi, the nice young woman who periodically joins our Italian conversation group to try to nudge us … Continue reading 63. Cantare (to sing)
Super Bowl Sunday is so close to being a national holiday that I actually wondered for a minute if the supermarkets would be open. But if not an actual holiday, at the every least, it's a national festival, with its own special foods, traditions with family and friends, and shopping opportunities to buy big-screen TVs … Continue reading 62. La Festa di Super Bowl
I feel awash in stereotypes of my people. Not actual Italians, but Italian-Americans. On Sunday, I saw Green Book, a movie based on the true story of an Italian-American man from the Bronx who drives an African-American pianist through the Deep South for a concert tour in the early 1960s. I loved the movie, but … Continue reading 61. Stereotypes
Tombola is a Southern Italian game, played especially around Christmas. Invented in Naples in the 18th century, it looks like Bingo to American eyes, the object being to fill the squares on one's card as numbers are called out. But here's what's special about it. Each of the numbers is associated with a person or … Continue reading 60. Tombola
People are surprised to hear that I didn't grow up with the custom of the "Seven Fishes" on Christmas Eve. In the old days, when being Catholic meant no meat on Christmas Eve, Italians, especially in the South, made their meal of "sacrifice" into a feast. No surprise there. The traditional dinner includes fried smelts, … Continue reading 59. The Feast of the Seven Fishes
There's something about Christmas that makes us nostalgic, weepy even, about Christmases past. My father, a world-class weeper, was certainly not immune from that. I came across this Christmas memory in a 1981 letter he wrote to me while he was listening to Italian Christmas songs, more than 40 years after leaving Gaeta. (An article … Continue reading 58. Zampognari
Is it better to live in an apartment with light, heat and a toilet? Or to live in a cave with your extended family, your chickens and a donkey? This was the question that the government of Italy asked itself in the 1950s when faced with the "shame of Italy": people living in these primitive … Continue reading 57. Matera Immaginata
I love my Christmas tree. Every ornament has great sentimental value to me. Some date back to 1952, when my mother, celebrating her first Christmas (with me!) in Somerset, Massachusetts, ordered them from the Sears Roebuck catalogue. Others signify political leanings, or depict my children at various ages, or identify me as a dog lover. … Continue reading 56. Ornamenti
It was puzzling enough when my cousin posted a Facebook photo of her granddaughter dressed as a "vampiretta" for Halloween. As far as I knew, Italians made a big deal of All Souls Day, November 2, getting together with family and visiting the cemeteries where their loved ones are buried. Italian cemeteries, by the way, … Continue reading 55. Black Friday?
For my 66th birthday yesterday, I chose to go to Sorbillo for lunch, the Manhattan outpost of my daughter Maria's favorite pizzeria in Naples. And authentic it was, with Italian-speaking staff and customers, and a pizzaiolo whose only words to us were "No speak English." It is hard to imagine a time when pizza was … Continue reading 54. Mr. Pizza
