An Ode to the Italian Cookie Table – how would we celebrate without it?

It was about 2am, early in February a year or so ago, when I finished packing the last of the fifth and final batch of amaretti cookies into a freezer container and snapped the lid closed satisfactorily. I picked up two misshapen “mistakes” of cookies and munched on them on the way to the fridge where I crossed “amaretti” off a long list held to the fridge door by a weak magnet. The magnet couldn’t hold the weight of the list, it kept falling to the floor, and I’d like to think it knew the weight and importance of just how many cookies were on that list and what they were for: an Italian cookie table for my sister’s wedding shower.

Amaretti, tri-colour cookies, chambrelle, crescents, pastry peaches and more lined table after table once we were all done. With two weddings in the family in eight months last year, the cookie baking was constant. My mother baked dozens upon dozens of cookies starting months in advance and filled her freezer, and the freezers of family and friends, leading up to the big day. (All these photos are from my own and my sister’s wedding showers.) The loving care with which they are all prepared, packaged, handled and displayed, shows just how important they are to the celebration.

While no one really knows how and when it originated in general (Wikipedia says it is a tradition that started in Pennsylvania), the cookie table is definitely an Italian-Catholic mainstay for weddings and bridal showers. After a three or four course meal at a shower or a wedding, all the guests line up with cookie boxes in hand to sample the traditional and newly invented cookies and to load up some treats to bring home and enjoy the next day.

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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 Folktales – lessons from hardship

My grandfather had a saying, in deep Calabrese dialect (such that I can say it but can’t figure out how to properly spell it), that “a full stomach, not a clean white shirt, makes you sing.” So many of his stories, and the stories of many other Nonni currently here in Canada tell, come from a place of hardship, from all the reasons why they left Italy.

There are many other stories told in my family that brought me to an interest in Italian folktales, that I worry sometimes are left behind in our memories. As a writer, I’m interested in the stories as they are told and the morals that are common in our culture. As with most folklore, Italian folktales focus on the religious or the mythical tied to an everyday experience. Italo Calvino‘s Italian Folktales, published in 1956, is a large collection of Italian folktales that range from simple country-side stories to ones that involve magic and royalty. While I’m still trying to decode the message in some of the stories, many of them echo sentiments I had heard from my grandparents about honour, struggle, distrust of leaders (whether religious or otherwise), and so on.

From Italo Calvino‘s Italian Folktales, here is a sample of those morals and messages that Italian storytellers, which is essentially each one of us, loved to share:

Giufà, fool that he was, never got invited anywhere or asked to honor anyone with his company. Once he went to a farm to see if they would give him something, but noticing how slovenly he was, they sicked the dogs on him. His mother then bought him a fine topcoat, a pair of pants and a velvet vest. Now dressed as a country gentleman, Giufà returned to the same farm. They made a big to-do over him, invited him to sit down to the table with them, and quite turned his head with all their compliments. When they served him, Giufà carried food to his mouth with one hand; with the other he stuffed food into all his pockets as well as his hat saying, “Eat your fill, my fine clothes, for they invited you, not me!”

The classic Italian meal structure

I’m trying to teach myself the proper Italian menu or Italian meal structure. After hosting a six course wedding dinner last year, and starting to have people over our own house, we’ve taken to at least having 2 to 3 courses when we have guests. I know that in Italy at least, we were always have primi and secondi at restaurants, but its not often that you see that here in Canada (unless you are at a relatively authentic Italian restaurant).

I came across this piece of artwork above (that I’m hoping to order to have in my kitchen, you can order it here) that got me thinking about just how much I know about the traditional Italian dinner courses. Here they are defined:

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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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Mini meatball lasgana Sunday

Nearly every Italian-Canadian I follow on Twitter has pics of their Sunday dinners (at Nonna’s or elsewhere)…so here’s mine. Mini meatballs for lasagna making today.

Heritage around the house…

Heritage is all around the house...

Are we related? Memories and histories of Italian-Canadians

I’ve got this thought now…what memories, what histories, were lost when my parents came to Canada from Italy?

I was up late last night reading the opening story to my new book purchase, Are we related?

The first story, with the same title, is written by Linda Grant and is about a daughter coping with an elderly mother who is losing her memory. It explores the notion that losing her mother’s memories meant also losing her history. More interesting was the truths that came out about the family’s past as Jewish Russians, things that were hidden or names that were changed to facilitate their living in England now. The main character, or I guess, the author depending on how it was written, touches briefly on the family history lost in the immigration and things she will never know about the past.

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