The Joy of Growing Up Italian.........

I was well into adulthood before I realized that I was an American.
Of course I had been born in America and had lived in New York
all of my life, somehow it never occurred to me that just being
a citizen of the United States meant I was an American.

Americans were people who ate peanut butter and jelly on mushy
white bread that came out of plastic packages.

I ate pepper and egg sandwiches or eggplant sandwiches on Italian
bread. I was Italian. For me, as I am sure for most second generation
Italian-American children who grew up in the 40's and 50's, there was a
definite distinction drawn between "us and them."

We were Italian. Everybody else -- the Irish, German, Polish, Jewish, they
were the "Med-e-gons." I don't remember animosity involved in that
distinction, no prejudice, no hard feelings, just, well, we were sure ours
was the better way. For instance, we had a bread man, a milkman, a
coal and ice man, a fish man, a fruit and vegetable man, a watermelon man,
an egg and cheese man, and we even had a man who sharpened
our knives and scissors and came to our homes, or at least our
neighborhoods.

We would wait for their call, their yell, their individual sound. We knew
them all, and they knew us.

Americans went to the store for most of their food.

They never knew the pleasure of waking up every morning to find a
hot crisp loaf of Italian bread waiting behind the screen door. And
instead of being able to climb up on the back of the peddlers truck a
couple of times a week just to hitch a ride, most of my "Med-e-gon" friends
had to be satisfied going to the A&P.

When it came to food, it always amazed me that my American friends
or classmates only ate turkey on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or, rather
that they only ate turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

Now, we Italians - we also had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and
cranberry sauce, but only after we had finished the antipasto, soup,
lasagna, meatballs, salad and whatever else Mama thought might be
appropriate for that particular holiday. The turkey was usually accompanied
by a roast of some kind (just in case somebody walked in who didn't like
turkey), and was followed by an assortment of fruits, nuts, pastries, cakes
and, of course, homemade cookies.

No holiday was complete without some home baking, none of that store-bought
stuff for us! This is where you learned to eat a seven course meal
between noon and seven PM, how to handle hot chestnuts and put
tangerine wedges in red wine.

I truly believe Italians live a romance with food. Speaking of food, Sunday
was the big day of the week! That was the day you'd wake up to the smell
of garlic and onions frying in olive oil.

As you lay in bed, you could hear the hiss as tomatoes were dropped into a
pan. Sunday we always had macaroni and gravy, the "Med-e-gons" called it
"pasta 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.

But the good part was we knew when we got home, we'd find hot meatballs
frying, and nothing tastes better than newly fried meatballs and crisp
bread dipped into a pot of sauce.

There was another difference between "us and" them. We had gardens.
Not just flower gardens, but huge gardens where we grew tomatoes,
tomatoes, and more tomatoes. We ate them, cooked them, and jarred them.

Of course, we also grew peppers, basil, lettuce and squash. Everybody had
a grapevine and a fig tree, and in the fall, everybody made homemade wine,
lots of it.

Of course, those gardens thrived so because we also had something else it
seemed our American friends didn't seem to have. We had a grandfather!
It's not that they didn't have grandfathers, its just that they didn't live
in the same house or on the same block. They visited their grandfathers. We
ate
with ours and God forbid we didn't see him at least once a day, and kiss
him each time.

I remember my grandfather telling me about how he came to America
as a young man on a boat. How the family lived in rented apartments and
took in boarders in order to help make ends meet, how he decided that he
didn't want his children, five sons and two daughters, to grow up in that
environment.

All of this, of course, in his own version of Italian-English, which I soon
learned to understand quite well. So, when he saved enough and I could
never figure out how, he bought a house. That house served as the family
headquarters for the next 40 years. Of course, he had to add his own touch
of himself to that house by building a porch on, and then deciding to add
another on to that, and another on to that one until he had added about
four porches on to the original.

He and my grandmother had to paint the kitchen and use enamel, high
gloss paint. They painted everything in sight including all the fixtures,
screws and all.

If anything needed to be taken apart, it was next to impossible to unscrew
it because of all the paint, and forget about trying to open the windows!

I remember how he hated to leave that house, and would rather sit on the
back porch and watch his garden grow, and when he did leave for some
special occasion, he had to return as quickly as possible. After all,
"nobody's watching the house."

I also remember the holidays when all the relatives would gather at my
grandparent's house and there would be tables full of food and homemade
wine and music.

Women in the kitchen and men in the living room, and kids, kids everywhere.
I must have half a million cousins, first and second and some who aren't
even related, but what did it matter. And my grandfather, with his gallon
jug of wine beside his chair, sitting there smoking his cigar in the middle
of
it all, grinning his mischievous smile, his eyes twinkling, surveying his
domain,
proud of his family and how well his children had done.

One was a barber, one had his fathers trade, one was a policeman and of
course, there was always the rogue. The girls, they had all married well
and had fine husbands and healthy children that everyone knew and respected.

He had achieved his goal in coming to America and to Brooklyn and now
his children and their children were achieving the same goals that were
available to them in this great country, because they were Americans.

When my grandfather died years ago, things began to change. Slowly at
first, but then uncles and aunts eventually began to cut down on their
visits. Family gatherings were fewer and something seemed to be missing,
although when we did get together, usually at my mother's house now, I
always had the feeling that they were there.

It was understandable, of course. Everyone had their own families now, and
their own grandchildren.

Today they visit once or twice a year. Today we meet at weddings and
wakes.

Lots of other things have changed too. The old house my grandfather
bought is now covered with aluminum siding, and the garden is gone. The
last of the homemade wine has long since been drunk and nobody covers
the fig tree in the fall anymore. For a while we would make the rounds on
the holidays visiting family. Now, we occasionally visit the cemetery. A lot
of
them are there, grandparents, aunts and uncles, a few cousins and even my
own mother and father.

The holidays have changed too. The quantity of food we once consumed
without any ill effect is not good for us anymore. Too much starch, too
many calories, too much cholesterol and nobody bothers to bake anymore...too
busy and it is easier to buy now. Too much is no good for you.

We meet at the same house now, at least my family does, but it's not the
same anymore. The differences between "us and "them" aren't so easily
defined anymore and I guess that's good.

My grandparents were Italian-Italians, my parents were Italian-Americans,
and I am American-Italian, and my children are American-Americans.

Oh, and I'm an American all right, and proud of it, just as my grandfather
would want me to be. We are all Americans now, Irish, Poles, Germans, and
Jews.

United States citizens all -- but somehow I still feel Italian.

Call it culture, call it tradition, call it roots. I'm not sure what it is,
all I do know is that my children have been cheated out of a wonderful piece
of heritage.
They never knew my grandparents.