ANCESTRAL CUISINE, AN ACQUIRED TASTE

Like most people, I love to eat good food, especially during the holidays when an abundance of traditional fare is set upon the family table. As an Italian American, I enjoy the taste, textures, and aromas of the foods of my heritage. These foods represent a continuity of family and tradition. For that reason, I like to prepare uniquely traditional foods during the holiday season.

The past holiday, I gave a dinner party for friends and family at which I served a variety of these favorite family foods. To my non-Italian guests, I explained that some of my dishes were ancestral recipes. The expressions on the faces of my guests, as they politely declined my more exotic dishes, gave me pause for thought. I came to realize just how different my traditional foods are from the average family menu. But, it's this very difference that makes them so unique and special.

Some of these traditional dishes include: Squid, stuffed with bread crumbs and baked in tomato sauce, sauted mustard greens in garlic, olive oil and red pepper flakes, roasted bell peppers bathed in garlic, parsley and olive oil, Baccala stew, eggplant parmesan, and sliced oranges seasoned with olive oil, garlic salt and black pepper.

Like most kids, I wasn't born liking these unique family foods. My fondness for them developed over the years after sniffing their piquant aromas drifting in from Grandma's kitchen. Associated with all of these family dishes is a feeling of togetherness, and a sense of well being.

Grandpa believed, like many from the old county, that a meal of his favorite foods relieved the tensions of a stressful day. He also believed that our spirit sighs after a good meal and that we should spend that time in rest and reflection.

For me, each taste of these traditional foods rekindles family customs, memories and a sense of legacy.

However, to someone who doesn't share my heritage, and has never come face to face with a casserole of baked squid, the sight of these small, tentacled relatives of the octopus can be somewhat unsettling.

To prepare and gather these provincial foods takes extra time and care.
But that's all a part of their charm and tradition. Like my Mom always says, "Food that is too easily prepared is like opening a bottle of champagne without the "pop"; it would eliminate half the fun".

Christmas Eve just wouldn't be Christmas Eve without the robust aroma of baccalà filling the air. This dehydrated salted cod fish comes from the store dried in salt and is the texture of wood until it is soaked in water for twenty-four hours, making sure to change the water every few hours. Then it is simmered in a stew pot of spicy tomato sauce and served with white spaghetti. This dish recalls priceless memories for Mom, memories that can't be found in today's fast foods.

Many of our family recipes come from the regions of our ancestors: polenta, butter and flat noodles from the Northern area of Italy and sea food and tubular pasts form the south.

I'm fortunate to have had grandparents who came from several regions of Italy. As a child, Grandma Isolina worked in her father's semolina mill in the town of Abruzzi, in the region of Pescara. This area, close to the Adriatic Sea, has the best of both worlds and has produced some of the world's finest chefs. The sea food, vegetation and olive groves are plentiful and today it is the only saffron growing region in Italy.

My grandma Maria came form the small, hilly town of Tricarico, Italy, where meat was scarce and tomato sauces were made from sun dried tomatoes. Her people had to be a lot more creative and resourceful with their menu. Dried pork sausages, beans, peas, pasta and wild mustard greens made up the town’s diet.
There is a sense of family continuity and memories that come along with these traditional foods. Family dishes, like our heritage, are intertwined in our daily lives. They're what connects us to our past.

To my knowledge, my grandparents never ate a fast food hamburger. Dining at one of today's modern nouvelle cuisine restaurants, where the entree is six peas and a one inch steak, would have left them hungry and asking: "Where's the beef, pasta, Chianti and garlic toast?”

My Italian grandma could do wonders in the kitchen with a little flour and water. She believed it was just as important to begin new traditions as it was to uphold the old ones. The following is a traditional pasta noodle recipe handed down through the generations. Why not begin a pasta tradition of your own.

2 cups of all purpose flour;
1 egg (lightly beaten);
1/2 teaspoon of salt;
water ( enough to fill the flour well);

Pour flour in mound onto work board, make a cup-like well in the flour. Add egg, oil, salt and enough water to fill the well. With a fork, gradually pull in flour from inside edges of the well. Gather up the flour and begin to knead into a dough. After ten minutes of kneading, the dough should become smooth, shiny and elastic. Divide and dust each part with flour.

Roll out into paper thin sheets. To create fettuccine noodles roll the thin sheets up jelly-roll fashion and cut into 1/4 inch slices. Quickly unroll after cutting and sprinkle with flour. Cook in 6 qt pot of boiling, salted water for 5 or 8 minutes, or until just tender to taste. Serve with your favorite tomato sauce or white sauce made with one quarter pond butter, creamed, gradually beat in 1/4 cup heavy cream and 1/2 cup parmesan cheese salt and pepper to taste.

"Buon appetito!" (Good appetite)

 

10631 Vinedale Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352 - Phone (818) 767-3413 - Fax: (818) 767-1410