A SUCCESSFUL LIFE BY COMIC STRIP STANDARDS
WHAT CONSTITUTES a successful life? Quick research focused on these points: physiological needs, safety, a place to belong, esteem needs, and self-actualization. Holy Maslow, Batman! What does all that mean?
The definition of a successful life was boiled down to its simplest terms by Stephan Pastis in his popular comic strip “Pearls Before Swine.” A character, Rat, asks an oracle if he lived a successful life.
ORACLE: “Did you eat a lot of Italian food?” RAT: “I did.”
ORACLE: “Then congratulations. You led a successful life.”
Ergo! By that indisputable wisdom, I am successful because I’ve dined Italiano much of my life. Italian food was just about all I ate for the first twenty-something years of my life. Every Italian son thinks his mother is the best cook in the world. In my mother’s case, it was true. On meatless Fridays she made Fettuccine Alfredo before there was Alfredo. To this day I’ve never tasted any sauce as good as mama’s red sauce. And I don’t care what anyone says, we never referred to the Holy Grail ingredient of a spaghetti dinner as gravy! Dinner was pasta or pasta, at least three times a week, then leftover pasta another night. Salads were simple, something we referred to as mezze mezze, loosely translated as half and half. Mama would mix olive oil with balsamic vinegar, garlic, and basil and pour it into a 9 X 13 baking dish about two inches deep. Then she added sliced tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper and oregano to the dip. It was placed in the center of the table so we all (mom, dad, and five sons) could dip freshly baked bread into the liquid, and spear a slice of tomato. Sounds unsanitary, I know, but hey, we were family.
My mother was famous for her ravioli, another dish I’ve never seen duplicated anywhere. Chickens would line up at the front stoop just to be an ingredient. She also mixed spinach, ricotta, and Parmesan with the chicken. She made the dough by hand. Rolled it out as thin as she could get it, then spooned a dollop of the chicken concoction about two inches apart and cut them with a pastry wheel. I was the ravioli “forker,” sealing the open edges by pressing them down with the tines. She made more than 200 at a time. There was always a contest among the boys to see who could eat the most. I Think I hold the record at 43. Her meatballs were matchless. I’ve come close to reproducing them but I cannot replicate the sauce she made from tomatoes she canned.
I don’t frequent Italian restaurants as often as you’d think someone with my heritage would, because I’ve been disappointed so many times. Yet, I’ll always go back to Fior d’talia in San Francisco. Any place that has been around for more than 130 years is doing something right. This is classic old-style Italian food.
Fond memories take me back to those special Sunday meals at 400 West Utica St. in Buffalo. Our Sunday dinners often started at noon and finished after seven or eight o’clock. It began with just immediate family sitting around the dining room table. There were breaks between courses as dishes were cleared. The faces changed often as relatives, friends, and neighbors were welcome to join in at any time. It was tag-team eating.
Even between courses and line-up changes, the bread never left the table as long as someone was sitting there. It was a true breaking of bread with companions – and why not – since the derivation of the word “companion” is from the Latin com (with) and panis (bread).
Uncle Fortunato made wine, so he came with a couple of jugs of Dago Red. New arrivals brought cookies such as anise pizzelle, torcetti, lemon ricotta cookies, and Sicilian fig cookies called cuccidati. There was always a bowl of nuts on the table.
So there is my comic strip success story. Did all that Italian food make me successful? Certainly not financially since I rankle over
$6.00 gas and needing to make monthly payments on a Porterhouse steak I put in lay-away. My kids are all good solid citizens and a sweet lady makes me smile more than you would think possible in one day.
Yes, I ate a lot of Italian food. As good as it was, it was ancillary to the gatherings around the table celebrating a heritage based on companionship, history, and familial love, along with reverence and gratitude for a country that welcomed my grandparents. Italian accomplishments in the arts and sciences are indisputable. Yet, because my heritage is an accident of birth, I cannot appropriate the genius of Michelangelo nor apologize for the degradations of Mussolini. As the great sailor man/philosopher, Popeye, said: “I yam what I yam.”
Still, deep, deep down, I am one spicy meatball.
Contact Jerry at jerrygervase@yahoo.com
