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Italian American Life - Frank Di Piero

Episode 140 – Discussing Carnevale with CAV. Lyn Scolaro OSI, a retired Italian Teacher and the President of the Sons and Daughters of Italy in America SADIA

Frank Di Piero was born in Chicago and is 100% Italian origin. He has traveled to Italy many times and attended two study abroad programs in Italy, one in Roma and one in Firenze. He is the former President of The Harlem Avenue Italian & American Business Association and was on the committee to start an Italian American Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago. He is a Director of Casa Italia, and LITTLE ITALY Cenetta. He is a volunteer at Casa Italia Library and the Italian Cultural Center.

A Unique Memory Of The Christmas Eve Feast

I loved the Christmas Eve feasts, especially in my early years at Grandma’s. It symbolized family, food love, joy, abundance, and spirituality.

For weeks, we frenzied in anticipation of the Christmas season. It was the time for shopping, cooking, and pausing on Christmas Eve for La Vigilia, awaiting the Christ child, and concluding Christmas Day with gifts and more food.

The feast was sumptuous, and many were eating lots. The smell of fish was pervasive throughout our always-open-doors three-tenement house. I had to prevent myself from fast-forwarding through the evening in anticipation of Christmas morning.

Grandmother, mother, and aunts scampered from the pantry to the kitchen and dining room. The room was aglow with light flickering from the chandelier and twinkling candles in the windows. Adults squeezed elbow to elbow.

In that gleaming dining room, the women presented their dishes . . . smelts, snail salad, red and white pasta, baccala, etc., and stood back with hands clasped. Beaming faces added more glow to the room. They watched, sitting to eat now and then. They trundled back and forth . . . talking, laughing, smiling, proudly wiping their hands on multicolored, handcrafted Christmas aprons, presenting their dishes as Maestrae. Beautiful. But not all was appealing to me.

Dad was banished to the kitchen while we kids were stationed in the nearby parlor.

His enthusiastic and unique request for The Dinner was pickled pigs’ feet. Yes, you read correctly; pigs’ feet, brined. He loved them, and Christmas Eve was the only time anyone yielded to his request. They wanted him to enjoy, if but once a year, his wish. Yes, though it was pork he was eating, it was acceptable enough for the meatless evening. It was his only time and only chance to have them.

My mother tolerated it because it was Christmas. “Peter. You. . . know . . . it’s . . . not . . . fish.”

“Of course, I do, Anna. But I love them. And they are close enough to fish. They’re white. Don’t they call this evening La Vigilia in Bianco?”

“Oh, get off,” she replied. ‘Get off’ was Mom’s blast-off when she preferred not to discuss anything further. But Dad was getting his wish.

He sat in the corner of the kitchen with a mopine tucked in his collar. He opened the jar and pulled out one foot at a time to devour his delicacy. Delicacy? I turned away so as not to see him eating things with toes. Mom stopped, turned, and scowled, again.

My grandmother weighed in. “Livva him alone. Letta him hav-a whatta he wanza. Itsa Christmas.”

And then there were those eels.

I never think of eels except at Christmas because they were part of La Vigilia. My family loved them, some considering the dish a delicacy.

My lack of enthusiasm probably started when I was a kid at our summer rental on the Narragansett shore when my uncle took me to the dock to see the fisherman catching eels one night. At eight years old, I was afraid of the dark. The stage was set.

As they pulled the serpentine creatures out of the water, I watched the slimy snakes squirm, ominously opening and closing their mouths. They were fish but had imperceptible gills, no scales, and, in the dark, no noticeable fins except for a ribbon thing along their backs.

The next time I saw them was when that same uncle’s mother was making a fish sauce. Percolating on her stove was a red gravy, and sticking out were the antennas of squid flailing amid hunks of dark mounds. “I cooka the calamadda.”

I pointed at the submersibles. “What are those dark things?”

“Ah, Ed-a Wood, atsa the bes, the eelllsa.”

Eels. Even in the gravy, they looked mysterious.

Somewhere along my educational way, I was told of the uncorroborated theory of spontaneous generation; the eel being its example. Aristotle believed that they were sexless and considered them natural originators. Our professor told us that the eels Aristotle caught were just sexually immature.

Eels evolved fifty million years ago. To my knowledge, no one has ever seen eels spawning, so it is difficult to understand how they reproduce.

Every American and European eel is born in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the Sargasso Sea south of Bermuda. The warm, salty, calmer conditions in the Sargasso make it ideally suited for spawning. Every year, after hatching, the tiny eels swim off toward land and up the coast to the rivers, spending their juvenile and adult lives in freshwater. At the end of their lives, they return to the sea to reproduce and die.

When they return to the Sargasso, they carry only enough fat and protein for a one-way trip. The trip is not easy thanks to thousands of dams along the eastern seaboard. Juveniles make it upstream with the aid of fish ladders but face the danger of being chewed up by the turbines in hydropower dams on their way back down as adults.

Enjoy your eels and your pickled pigs' feet.

“Itsa Christmas.”

This medical doctor married Hilda Cederstrom and the couple made their home in Providence. From Robert Berillo “Dr. Valentino was a graduate of Classic HS, Brown University and Harvard Medical School. He was a colleague of my father and a close friend of the family; a kind and compassionate man for whom the practice of medicine was a vocation not a business. Hilda and my mother were both R.I. District nurses together.

Thank you to David Chadronet for donating Angelo’s portrait to The Photo Angel project! I am pleased to report that his image will soon be back in the hands of family in The Land of Lincoln State

Celebrating Italian Heritage (and Debating Pizza)

Hi there! My name is Michael Valleriano, and I’m thrilled to share my passion for Italian-American history and culture with you.  My journey started with a deep curiosity about surnames and heritage—something I explored while traveling through Italy and North America. Along the way, I discovered that my own last name has a unique story, which I shared in this interview with Bob: Researching Avellino: The Valleriano Brothers’ Heritage Quest.

In future contributions to Bob's email newsletter, I'll dig into the similarities and differences between Italian-Americans from the Midwest/Great Lakes region, where I grew up and live, and those in the NYC area which is the World's primary source of "Italian-American-ism".   While we all share a love of good food and family traditions, there are some fascinating cultural quirks to explore (let’s just say Rochester feels more like Cleveland than Manhattan).

I’ll also share snippets from my blog, FeMike's (aka IronMikes) Blog – In Search of…musings for my grandchildren while riding my bike…, which I started six years ago as a way to preserve family stories for my grandkids.  It’s since received International recognition and grown into a mix of childhood memories, reflections on Italian-American culture (like those “Nebaletan” words we all heard as kids), and even pizza reviews. Because honestly, what’s more Italian-American than passionately arguing over pizza?

I want to leave my first contribution with this picture:

This is my ancestral home in Serino, Avellino, Campania. When I look at this sculpture, I see my Bisnonno (Great-Grandfather), clutching his suitcase as he passes through the archway at Porto Capuano in Napoli. It’s 1901, and he’s about to board “the boat” to Lady Liberty, leaving everything behind for a new life in America. Beside him, I imagine my Great-Great-Grandfather (whoever he was—I’ll share that story another time) trying to let go!

The first time I saw this sculpture, I cried—and I still do with each visit. If there’s one thing we, as Italian-Americans, all share, it’s this story: a journey built on courage, sacrifice, and hope for a better future.  I'm eternally grateful! 

Grazie mille,

Michael Valleriano

Dorina's Lemon Cake

This makes a great weeknight treat as it is just sweet enough and if you want to dress it up for a special occasion or for company add this little lemon glaze which just puts it over the top!

Remember... if you make even a simple dessert... everyone stays at the table longer!

INGREDIENTS

Cake

2 cups Flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

3 eggs

1 cup milk with one teaspoon of vinegar mixed in

2 tbsp lemon zest

2 tbsp lemon juice (fresh)

(if you are short on lemon... add a bit of Lemon extract)

Glaze

Juice of one lemon

zest of one lemon

enough powdered sugar mixed in to make a glaze to pour over the top.

(if you end up needing more than you thought you can always add a little milk and sugar)

Mix the butter, sugar and eggs...

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Now alternate mixing the flour mix and the milk/vinegar into the butter mix ending with flour.

Lastly... add the lemon zest and lemon juice.

Pour into a greased pan. (in this video I also "sugared" the sides of the pan but it's not necessary. You can just grease with oil.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. This is a dense moist cake.

Let cool a bit then pour the glaze over the top and let drip down the sides.
Buon Appetito! Dorina

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