9781422277447

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The Italian Family Table

by D i ane B a i l e y

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The African Family Table The Chinese Family Table The Greek Family Table The Indian Family Table The Italian Family Table The Japanese Family Table The Mexican Family Table

The Middle Eastern Family Table The Native American Family Table The SouthAmerican Family Table The Thai Family Table

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The Italian Family Table

By Diane Bailey

MASON CREST

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D

Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

© 2019 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4041-0 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-4046-5 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7744-7

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bailey, Diane, 1966- author. Title: The Italian family table / by Diane Bailey. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, 2018. | Series: Connecting cultures through family and food | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017053428| ISBN 9781422240465 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422240410 (series) | ISBN 9781422277447 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Cooking, Italian--Juvenile literature. | Italian Americans--Food--Juvenile literature. | Food habits- -Italy--Juvenile literature. | Italy--Social life and customs--Juvenile literature. | United States--Emigration and immigration--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC TX723 .B2326 2018 | DDC 641.5945--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2017053428

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Introduction............................................................................................. 6 1. Getting Here. ............................................8 APPETIZER............................................................................ 20 2. Settling In................................................22 MAIN COURSE....................................................................... 34 3. Connecting..............................................36 SECOND COURSE...................................................................46 4. Reaching Back........................................50 DESSERT................................................................................ 60 Find Out More......................................................................................62 Series Glossary of Key Terms..........................................................63 Index/Author........................................................................................ 64 Contents

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Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together addi- tional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

Introduction

P eople are always looking for ways tostayyoung—theystick to a healthy diet, exercise regularly, and get plenty of sleep. No strategy works forever, but the Italians may have found the best one yet: Enjoy your dinner! An Italian saying goes, “ A tavola non si invecchia .” In En- glish that means, “At the table, no one grows old.” Maybe that’s why Italians like tospendhours lingering over their meals. Italians have a long history of having not only an appetite for food, but for life as well. Italy produced the famous explorers Christopher Columbus,MarcoPolo, andAmerigo Vespucci (for whom the Americas were named). The Renaissance—a time that put new emphasis on art, science, andculture—startedinItaly

inthe1300s.During theRenaissance, aperiodof a fewcenturies following theMiddleAgesinEurope,Michelan- gelopaintedtheceilingof theSistine Chapel in Vatican City (in Rome), and Leonardo da Vinci painted the MonaLisa ,probablythemost famous painting in the world. The musical formof operawas born inFlorence, Italy.Andthe ItalianscientistGalileo Galileiadvocatedacontroversial idea (at the time, anyway): that theEarth revolved around the Sun. At the time, most Italians did not believe (or even understand) that idea, and most of them prob- ably did not care one way or the other. To them, the Sun and the Earth worked in a partnership to do the most important job: grow food. For any Italian—peasant or

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Introduction

king—food was the very center of life. Centuries after theRenaissance, when Italians began moving away from the country looking for better opportunities, they took a few lira , some changes of clothes, andmaybe

a jar of tomatoes or a bottle of olive oil carefully packed among their belongings. They could not take all of Italy with them, but they could take a taste that would bring them back to its sunny fields, no matter where they landed.

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Getting Here

Words to Understand emigrate leave one’s home country to live in another country exodus a mass departure of people from one place to another exploited unfairly benefit from someone else’s work immigrants people who have left their home country and moved to another unification the process of making several independent states into a single political whole A t the end of the 19th century, smoke was rising from the face of the Earth around the world. It billowed into the air from engines that powered trains, mining equipment, and factories. The advanced technology of the Industrial Rev- olution was changing the world. Railroad tracks were being laid with incredible speed, connecting the coasts of America and the countries of Europe. Cities grew up around factories that employed thousands of workers, churning out everything from cloth to steel. In Italy, though, there wasn’t much coal or petroleum to feed the hungry ma-

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Italy at the turn of the 19th century was a rural nation, with small towns focused on farming, fishing, and family life.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

chinery of the Industrial Revolution. Even by the turn of the 20th century, most people lived in rural areas, growing crops and raising animals to feed their families. For the nation’s poor people, those were tough times. As countries like the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia were leading theway into aneweconomy,many Italianswere getting left behind. Looking for a BetterWay B efore 1860, Italy was not the country we recognize today. Instead, it was a collection of nation-states, eachwith its own government. But there were efforts to stitch all these different parts into a single whole. After decades of wars and political upheaval, by 1871 the many different regions were finally united into Italy. As this new nation established itself over the next two decades,

standards of living var- ied widely. Some citizens, especially in the north, were relatively well off. Others struggled to get by. And many, especially in the south, were des- perately, crushingly poor. They were overwhelm- ingly peasants, living off the land. That’s always a life of hard work, often at the mercy of the weather. There are good years and

Here’s Milan, Italy, in the late 1800s, a city still far from industrial modernization.

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Getting Here

Italy has a wide variety of terrain, from mountains in the north, to foothills farther south, and to beaches and Mediterranean climates.

bad. But in southern Italy, bad was outpacing good. And bad was getting worse. Peasants in favor of unification had hoped that the newpolitical struc- turewouldbring fairer laws. Instead, thenewgovernmentwas levyinghigh taxes on the people who could least afford to pay them. Meanwhile, olives and grapes, two crops that were important to the country’s agricultural industry, were suffering from attacks of disease and insects. Farmers who grew citrus fruits like oranges and lemons were competing with

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

new suppliers in the United States. And Italy’s population was growing, meaning more hungry children with less food to feed them. In some places, women were mixing plaster from the walls in with their flour to make the bread dough stretch a little farther. Through it all, though, Italians clung to a sense of honor. Even when there was no food in the house, families would rattle the pots and pans and shake the tablecloths out the windows as if to rid them of crumbs, hoping to fool their neighbors into believing theywere eatingwell. But it’s only possible to pretend for so long, and by the 1870s, hundreds of thousands of Italians were looking for a way out or a better life.

Thousands of Italians arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s on ships steaming from European ports.

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Getting Here

Not a Helping Hand

Some Italians came to their new homes with plans to meet family members who were already estab- lished there. These earlier immi- grants could help the new arrivals find jobs and places to live. But many did not have even that much of a safety net. They stepped off the boat with no knowledge of the language, culture, or geography of the country. Needing a job quickly, they often turned to a padrone . The word is related to “patron,” which means someone who will help. Unfortunately, many padrones—often

other Italians—were less interested in helping immigrants than in helping themselves. They exploited new immigrants, promising to find them jobs, but charging high fees for their “help.” Some of the jobs did not materialize, or paid less than was promised. A lot of new immigrants basically worked as servants, forced to pay off their padrone before they could move on.

Starting Fresh I n the years between Italian unification and the outbreak of WorldWar I in 1914, it’s estimated that about 16 million Italians emigrated to other countries. This period is sometimes called the great wave of immigra- tion,but it wasn’t the first exodus . In the half-century before unification, thousands of Italians—mostly from northern Italy—also left the country.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

But the great wave consisted overwhelmingly of southern Italians. About a quarter of these immigrants —roughly fourmillion—came to theUnited States. Although America was home to Irish, Polish, Greek, Jewish, and other immigrants, those from Italy were the largest group. The vast ma- jority came on ships that sailed through Ellis Island in New York Harbor, where the Statue of Liberty greeted them. Most of them didn’t stray too far from the northeastern states, settling in large cities such as NewYork, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Part of the reason for that was that they could not afford to keep trav- eling. Most had very little money, and they needed jobs fast. The other reasonwas that the Industrial Revolutionhad shifted jobs fromrural areas

Gnocchi Day

On any 29th of a month, Argentinians recognize gnocchi day. Gnocchi are dumplings made with potatoes and flour. They were introduced to the

country by Italians, along with pizza and pasta. The idea of gnocchi day comes from early immigrants, who usually received their pay on the first of the month. Many families

were short on funds by the end of the month, just before payday. Inexpen- sive gnocchi made the perfect meal when money was at its tightest and the cupboard shelves held little. Today, the tradition continues in the homes of later-generation Italians and in restaurants, which sometimes serve nothing except gnocchi on this day. It’s believed to bring good luck, and in families who aren’t strapped for cash, it’s customary for everyone to get a little mon- ey under their plates, too.