Cooking in my Mother's Kitchen

Dedication~

"Yes Ma I was looking when you were cooking." -Beth  

As children, we never sat down to a holiday table with no less than 10 people. The kitchen was full of smells that were mouthwatering and the lively conversations were always entertaining and educating. The smell of her spaghetti sauce permeated every corner of the kitchen and with it brought a sense of calmness and family togetherness.

Years later, as an adult, I sat in an empty kitchen. Gone were the family of aunts, uncles, and cousins and the family stories. I was sorting through a lifetime of kitchen tools and scraps of recipes and occasional pictures of family gatherings with side notes of who was who.

My beloved Ma had passed and I was desperately trying to hold onto memories so I didn't forget the lessons she taught. I opened a drawer and found her "Betty Crocker"  1940's original edition cookbook and her beloved recipe box that held her future ideas to be developed. Oh how I wished I had cooked with her and listened to the stories that she had lived and learned from. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her large stainless steel stock pot sitting on the back burner of the stove. It was if it was waiting for her to return. So I would keep it as a reminder of her and our family dinners and I took the pot and placed it in my car. Then, I carefully fingered the well-worn book and wrapped it in one of her hand embroidered dish towels and took it home and placed it with her recipe box in the bottom of my dresser drawer til I decided what to do. 

I can no longer cook with her. However, I can cook in "her" Italian kitchen.



I was inspired to write this after going to an Adriana Trigiani book talk. 

The Spanish Flu

If there was one thing that struck fear into the hearts of the Italian community it was the flu. The flu swept through towns like the plague. It seemed to travel on the wind. People who would be walking down the street perfectly fine, in hours would be dead.  It seemed to hit young adults to middle aged the hardest. It was a terrible disease. When you thought the person was over the worst and getting better they would suddenly take a turn for the worst and die of suffocation because of respiratory failure.  My grandmother Carmella was hit the hardest. In 1918, her two sons, Anthony (the baby at that time,) and Nicholas (in his late teens) were struck with the flu. Anthony died within days of respiratory failure after it appeared he was getting better. Nicholas survived but never fully recovered due to respiratory and heart problems and died later. Carmella was emotionally crippled and would walk up the hill to the church cemetery and cry on a daily basis for her lost children. As was the practice at that time they were buried out of the home. The funeral director would come to the house and embalm on the spot. My Aunt Jerry said that she and her sisters would stand and watch him do his work. She said she turned to her relatives and said her brother was going to get up and walk away. They would have an Italian wake for 3 days at the house. The priest came to the home and the services were held there and from that point the body was carried to the cemetery for burial.      

It takes a village to raise a child

   In the village that both my parents grew up in everyone knew everyone else from one end of the town to the other one.  If someone was ill or unable to function there was always someone there to help.  Since Roswell was a coal mining town when the air alarm went off everyone knew there was a mining accident and was there to help from preparing food to organizing the wake.  My father's father owned one of the three cars in the whole town.  When people saw him motoring up the road they knew he was paying a visit to the less fortunate at the other end of  town. He often brought food or shoes for the children.  He made sure not to make it appear to be charity it was more of a gift from one friend to another. He payed it forward which was to help him much later, when during his passing during the Spanish flue epidemic, those he helped came forward to help his family.  He made a comfortable living for his family but made sure that he gave back to his community. They made their own chocolates which they sold for a penny a piece at the store mostly to the children of the area.  The insides were dark filling, if you were lucky enough to find a pink filling and showed it to them in the store you got a free piece of chocolate. 
     My mother's family lived at the other end of the town.  Her mother had 12 children spaced roughly 3 years apart throughout her life. There were seven girls and five boys.  As one reached the age and moved out they were there to help the next one coming up behind which took some of the load off the family.  Her father was a coal miner which was a very thankless job in those days.  You took your life in your own hands when you walked into one of the mines.  Whenever you filled up cart with coal you chalked your number  on the side of the cart.  When it got outside the check weigh man could very easily erase your number and chalk the number of someone else and split the cost. In those days you got paid by stint (your limit) of how many coal carts you filled up.  With that situation it was hard to make enough money to support your family.  My mothers Uncle lived in Buffalo, New York which was a stepping off place for most immigrants.  He was quite well to do and started several businesses.  One business of which still exits today called Amigone Funeral Home. He would visit his sister (my Grandmother) in Roswell and he would give her money. My grandfather found out about this and was furious taking it as an insult that he couldn't support his family.  He was a proud man and would have his family do without before taking anything from anyone. My Grandmother was careful from then on to only take the money when he wasn't looking or around.                     

In The Beginning

   My mother was the youngest of 12 children to Italian immigrant parents. Her family were the only Italians living on an all Polish street in the village of Rosewell, Ohio. Atop the mountain village of Vastogirardi, the idea of American prosperity brought both of her parents to America. My father was the only son of the loan groceria (Italian for grocery store) in the same village located near the Blue Shaft coal mine. His genitori (parents), were both immigrants from the Lago Maggiore (Lake Major) area in Northern Italy. His father was a speculator. He was no coal miner and he knew it.
     The Klondike, later renamed Rosewell, is located about six miles outside of New Philadelphia, Ohio. It was first comprise of mainly Italian and Polish immigrants who settled to work in the local coal mines. The reason why immigrants settled in the village and called it the Klondike is because it was like for them as the great Alaska Klondike gold rush was for others in history. Instead of gold, they  were searching for coal.
    My father's father. was not the humble man to work in the coal mines. Instead, he preferred to be a speculator and represent those coal miners who were immigrants and settled in the village.A modern entrepreneur who gave back to his community.   My mother's father much preferred to work hard and stay humble. Seven girls and five boys for my mother's father. Two girls and one boy for my father's father.