By: Rosalba Sgambelluri
If you took a second to read my name, you’d recognise it’s not exactly common. It is a name I got from my grandmother, who was born in Siderno, Calabria; one of the most southern places in Italy. I love my name, mostly because of how much fun it is to hear teachers and my peers alike struggle with the pronunciation, but also at how excited my Italian teachers get when they see it. But the essence of my culture does not stop at my name; it is branded into everything I do. My family, both sides of it, are big, loud and very much Italian. You could only imagine the amount of impact this has made on my life, most especially around the holidays. Because of the pandemic I am not able to participate in our usual traditions with my entire extended family (which consists of parties with over 100 people, dinners with tables that extend into the living room, and a full open house to fit all the cousins… all of which would be very un-covid-friendly), so I thought to myself, why not share some of these traditions with my school community, and the ways we are still keeping festive.
To begin in the only way appropriate when talking about Italians… our food is especially delicious and essential to the Christmas season. Take nocatole, for an example, which is a Calabrese staple. Nothing is better than walking into a kitchen right after your Nonna or Mother is finished frying that soft, warm, sweet dough. The recipe is as simple as can be, but absolutely delicious. Panatone is also another favorite, which can be found at anyone’s table around the Christmas season. It is a mildly sweet cake, with more of a bread-like texture covered in powdered sugar. One of my favorite parts of the holidays is having someone visit for Christmas and cutting the Panatone, usually with lemon custard or chocolate chips, and having enough to bring as a snack for school for the week. I must mention the Torrone, which is made in so many different ways it is impossible to keep track. Samartini, Pignolata, Pizzelle, all the traditional Christmas biscotti and so many more desserts are made and shared during some pre-Christmas visits, Christmas Eve, Christmas day, or pretty much anytime you enter a Calabrese’s house in December.
Moving on from the ridiculously extensive dessert list, let’s talk about the traditional seafood feast of Christmas Eve. Like many, there are traditions surrounding the day before Christmas, although our traditions circulate mostly around our food. After the Christmas Eve mass (or perhaps before… depending if you typically attend the midnight mass), you enjoy possibly the best meal of the year. Traditionally, you must eat thirteen different things (it cannot be a type of meat). As an appetizer, fried zeppole are a perfect warm up. The only thing nobody likes about the zeppole is that they create the delusion that you will be able to eat an excessive amount of them and still make it through the whole meal. Starting with a seafood salad (seafood antipasto), fish fritters (pittelle de pesce), linguine with seafood, mussels, clams, a large variety of mixed fried fish, steamed white wine and butter seafood mix, bread, salad, broccoli, fruit, roasted chestnuts and dessert (in case you missed it, see previous paragraph). It’s safe to say that diets are also necessary starting boxing day.
The reason I said the dieting starts on boxing day is because Christmas Eve is our way of stretching our stomachs to consume the Christmas day meal. Christmas for me means a seven o’clock sharp wake up, open gifts, eat nocatole for breakfast and get dressed in our nicest clothes to get to Nonna and Nonno’s house by 11 o’clock. Once at their house, me and the girl cousins set the table while the ladies help my Nonna in the kitchen. The boys get the fold-out chairs from the basement and fold-out tables from the garage, which are added to the end of their dining room table and extend all the way to the front of the house. The men… they ‘prepare’ the home-made wine for dinner, although everyone else recognises it as a chance for them to talk about who called them that morning and what the family back in Italy are doing. At around 1 o’clock it is time for everyone to gather around the table, starting with my Nonno and Nonna at the head of the table and the kids on the opposite side (usually seated about half-way through the living room). There is bread, lasagna, potatoes, pittelle, rappini, meatballs, ribs, veal, braciole, goat (cabretto), peas, salad, zeppole, antipasto (prosciutto, sorpresatta, mixed cheese, etc…), fruit and roasted chestnuts (castagne). Might I just add, this meal is finished off with dessert and my family must leave by 4 o’clock so we can get to my Mother’s side of the family for 5. And guess what? We’re expected to eat this meal a second time when we get there!
Although we may not be able to join together to participate in these events, or our massive annual Christmas party (which takes place in a hall and consists of my extended family of over 150 people), we are doing everything we can to stay close- from far. For an example, while we may usually spend lots of time at my nonnies, they instead bought an I pad so they can face time us anytime. We get together for Christmas with extended family, but this year there will be many group video calls. Our annual Christmas visits where we deliver the Christmas cookies and gifts to aunts and uncles are being turned into a quick outside/ roll-down-the-window-of-your-car-to-talk-visit. If there is one thing I want you to take from this article, it is that Italians are family oriented people, which also means we want the best for one another and do not want to get anyone sick (even if it means celebrating amongst ourselves this year). Besides, this year could be the well-deserved break our stomachs needed from the annual Christmas force-feeding by every adult at the table!
Comments