Found: Vintage Italian Postcard – Napoli 1907

Another favourite Italian vintage postcard! From the depths of a million vintage postcards, at a vintage paper show in Toronto, these little gem is a look at an old life in Italy. I’m not sure what drew me to this more: the long clothes lines or the donkeys and wagons. Do you have any vintage photos of Italy or Italian-Canadians to share? Let me know in the comments!

Heritage around the house…chestillu or crivu

Today’s picture is one of my favourite things in my house – my chestillu or crivu. I’ve mentioned this Calabrese tool before in my recipe for turdilli. “Chestillu” is decidedly the name of this from my dialect, but I’ve also found them online called a “crivu.” Another blogger’s recipe for turdilli mentions them here or you can find a short description on the Italian Wikipedia here. While I’ve only ever seen this used to make gnocchi and turdilli, apparently it was originally for sifting flour, and is also used for drying tomatoes or olives.

Italian Preserving: food, family and heritage

As spring and summer approach, I’ve been thinking a lot about Italian preserving and canning techniques. Italians who went abroad, like us here in Canada, have maintained many traditions from our former country including preserving meats, vegetables and fruits. While preserving has come back into style due to economic conditions here in North America, Italian-Canadian families are blessed with the knowledge and experience of years of preserving everything including tomatoes and beyond.

It’s said that many in Italy have left this tradition behind, as have those of us that are now third generation Italian-Canadian. However, even I, as a young Italian-Canadian, am hoping to keep the preserving of our foods, and yes, our heritage, much a way of life. I have a few reasons for doing this…

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Italian-Canadian Glass Art and Glassblowing

We didn’t intend to connect with an old Italian art when we signed up for an glassblowing class last month, but that’s just what we got. A connection to art, heritage and community and some great glass pieces to go home with.

Us two Italian-Canadians headed to small town Ontario, namely the beautiful town of Elora, to learn how to create art out of glass. We thought it would be a neat new thing to learn. As soon as I saw the fires, kiln and gorgeous glass artwork, I was immediately reminded of the spectacular sights in the glass shops in Venice that I saw when I was much younger. Venetian glass dates back to the early 1200s, glassblowing in Ontario, I’m sure, is just a few hundred years old but has a very strong artistic community.

At Blown Away Glass Studio, Katherine guided us through the toughest art lesson I’ve ever had. I don’t think I even grabbed a sixteenth of the glass that the real artists pick up to work with, and yet my arms were killing me.

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Italian Dessert Food Groups Pyramid

I have a definite appreciate for the four-course meals that are part of Italian rituals…but in doing my Italian Food Pyramid a while back, it struck me that there’s also a certain method and hierarchy to Italian dessert too. Thus, the Italian dessert food groups or pyramid.

I find the after-dinner ritual of dessert just as comforting as Italian food itself. Offering guests a small glass of alcohol and proceeding into coffee. I also appreciate the serving of fruit, something that is not necessarily always common in other cultures, before the heavier things are served. And it’s always in that order, so the pyramid was easy to build. Digestivo first, coffee and fruit and nuts, followed by a good canoli (or panettone at Christmas, or zeppole in February…).

The rituals of desserts and dolci play a big part of my family heritage with recipes that are old and new variations that have become favourites. What I love about Italian desserts is that they aren’t always super sweet, but can go a bit to the savoury side, using nuts and honey and wine in cooking. What this really stems from is Italian dolci always being simpler, in fact it was mostly fruits used as sweets many years ago, and it is thought that only with the addition of French and American influences that some of the other cakes and rich desserts that items like tiramisu become popular. Many cookbooks point to Italian desserts being “humble”, which I don’t necessary agree with. It’s not the fat content in the desserts that I find satisfying – and I think this might be the same for others – but it is the complex tastes that do it for me.

My attempt to diet, especially while making this Italian dessert food groups pyramid is being, is being challenged. But it a part of a meal I’d loath to give up, if just for the memories and familiarities it brings.

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The significance of gold…and snakes

Before she left for Canada, my grandmother made one last purchase. A gold ring in the shape of a coiled snake. I’ve never seen another like it and I’m left wondering if there was some significance to the snake itself or if buying gold was another way of protecting what little money they had.

There is this Italian obsession with gold, though I’ve come to know living in Canada that it isn’t unlike other cultures obsession with the same precious metal. I’m well aware that that my friends who travel to their country of heritage go shopping there, like India, to get a better price on gold, just as we do when we go to Italy.

I was struck by the image of a snake bracelet the other day that I adored, only to have it make me recall a snake ring that my mother has, as my grandmother is no longer with us. It is precious to my mom because she remembers it from the trip to Canada and, of course, throughout her life. I remember it on my grandmother’s hands a lot.

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Italian Traits & Characteristics – can this 18th century description be right?

My husband, upset by someone at work, shouted in the car today as he told me his story: “You never attack my reputation! You never attack an Italian’s reputation.”

Ah, another ltalian trait come to life in our Italian-Canadian world? It also got me thinking about my older post about a friend who found out, only after we believe he was indeed Italian in spirit and character, was actually Italian by birth. Is it stupid to try and find and define the characteristics of one race…is that racism? But certainly there are characteristics and beliefs that tie us together. A Google search later and I found a very old essay just about this very thing…Italian Traits and Characteristics.

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What makes us Canadians, Italian?

Many times when I think of my “Italianness” and what it means to have culture and history in your life, your identity tied to your heritage, I think of an old friend of mine and his experience with his heritage. His story is one that always makes me think – what makes me Italian? What traits am I looking for? Who decides who I am at heart?

This particular guy was dating a friend of mine, she was Italian-Canadian and he was, by all accounts Italian. He had worked in Little Italy for some time and certainly, he had picked up some traits of the all-Italian machismo that surrounded him and from the patrons that were more often that not Italian. When he started dating my friend, his Italianness was even more evident – the way he loved, his passions, his love for food, his dedication to family and many other traits that at the time, we insisted – he was Italian in the most basic sense of the word. Yet, he was completely Canadian – tall and blonde and from small town Ontario.

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