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Under the Influence of The Old Country
For generations my family worked the land in Calabria, in southern Italy.
They were herdsmen, farmers, cheese makers, and butchers.
Italian cuisine is essentially a cuisine of preservation: meats become pancetta
and prosciutto, milk turns into cheese, grapes become wine, olives are brined
or cured for eating and pressed for oil. The oil in its turn is used to preserve
foods as diverse as wild mushrooms collected in the woods, or the garden's
tomatoes. The quality of meals depends entirely on the quality and quantity
of the land's harvests.
My grandparents continued that tradition when they migrated to the lumber
towns of Northern California. By the time I was born, my father had moved
our family to California's richly agricultural Central Valley.
Throughout my youth, my mother and I hiked the hills looking for mushrooms
and wild greens, worked in her huge garden, and canned her harvest. Our shared
activities taught me about the cycle of seasons, about life itself, and put
food on the table, too.
Whenever I make my mother's tomato sauce, I remember her. She fed my brothers
and me bits of toasted Parmesan cheese from her electric skillet, and I do
the same for my three girls now. Mothers teach daughters and daughters-in-law
the family recipes. They, in turn, teach their daughters. When I returned
to Calabria in 1997, the dishes on my relatives' tables tasted just like
the ones I ate as a child. |
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