Italian Thanksgiving, or how one group resisted Americanization

[Drahthaardogs]

http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/italian-thanksgiving-or-how-one-ethnic-group-resisted-americanization/?fbclid=IwAR2gcYMttxoeXZSoxZao7nfTOLcBj2U-4QzM1cWuYg2dMDrg8EmuGWSn2SI


This is still tradition in our family

[luvs2sing]

1. We often spend the holidays with Italian friends.

Thanksgiving is the traditional American fare, but Christmas! Christmas is hand-made spaghetti with sauce that has cooked for a solid week. A pork loin is cooked in the sauce, then taken out and sliced, and more meatballs are added every day. There is wedding soup, homemade pies, and Italian cream cake. Oh, and fried chicken! I dream of Theresa’s Christmas dinner.

[CaptainTruth]

9. I have to ask about "wedding soup."

My wife is from Italy, Milan area, moved to the US about 6 years ago.

She started laughing when she saw a can of "Italian wedding soup" at the grocery store. She tells me there's no such thing, at least, in her several decades growing up in Italy she never heard of it. She even contacted several of her relatives & friends in Italy to ask about it & none of them had heard of it either.

Which makes me curious ... do your friends know what part of Italy wedding soup comes from? Apparently folks in the north (from Rome northward, anyway) aren't familiar with it, so is it Sicilian?

[luvs2sing]

10. It is from Campania in southern Italy.

Has really nothing to do with weddings. The name is a riff on blended or “wedded” broths. It is linked to the annual pig slaughter with the bones being boiled to make a broth that are then blended with the other ingredients,

[smirkymonkey]

2. I am half Italian. My grandparents were off the boat.

We have a traditional American Thanksgiving, but on Christmas Eve we have an Italian feast with all the seafood (the 7 fishes) and either a big lasagne or eggplant parmesan and pasta. Also a big anti-pasto platter and other Italian treats - cannoli, paste-chote, almond macaroons, etc.

My mom isn't Italian, but she learned how to cook Italian food pretty well and all of us kids learned at the hands of our grandmother and great aunt sitting around in their kitchen. Even my brothers are great Italian cooks. To me, it is the best food in the world. It is the ultimate comfort food.

[Drahthaardogs]

3. I grew up in an isolated town that was mostly italian.

I make my own sausage, prosciutto, wine, cheese, cure my own olives, etc. We are northern (piemontese), so our cuisine is different than what most are used to in America.

Every Holiday is a blending of American and italian cuisine. We will have agnolotti in red sauce for Thanksgiving as well as bagna Cauda and Bagnet vert

[Polybius]

8. You just named three dishes that this 100% Italian never heard of

Looks delicious, I looked them up.

[smirkymonkey]

11. I grew up in upstate NY in a very Italian city. Everyone in my family had grapevines

over their driveways and gardens out in the back. They made their own pasta and sausage - I remember the sausage grinder clamped to the table - and the fantastic specialties like veal cutlets, fried zucchini blossoms, the best meatballs I have ever had anywhere and the world's best tomato sauce that I have tried to replicate but have not been successful - I have come close.

Where did you grow up? Your food sounds wonderful! We were not quite as culinary sophisticated as you are, but we grew up with amazing Italian food. I have to admit, I am a bit of an Italian food snob and have rarely found a restaurant in this country that is up to my standards.

[Drahthaardogs]

15. I grew up out west

My family were the macellaio. Most of our recipes are 200 years old

[smirkymonkey]

16. The butchers?

I think that is what that means. Anyway, very interesting family history. Are you from San Francisco? I lived there for a while and there was some excellent Italian food in that area.

[Drahthaardogs]

17. Yes, the butchers

Originally, the norcini. The men who traveled from village to village and would process the family pig into sausage, salami, and prosciutto every year. They were wine and cheese makers as well.

I love my heritage and how they tried to steal it from us. They took our language, but not out food and customs. I laughed at the "never take the last piece". To that I would add, you must eat SOMETHING when offered. To turn down hospitality is an insult.

[smirkymonkey]

18. I get it.

I honestly do. Thank you for sharing your history with us.

[tblue37]

6. My grandparents came here from Sicily near the turn of the century. Here is Grandpa at 13, in

the Pennsylvania coal mines:

Lewis Hine caption: A young leader and a driver, Shaft #6, Pennsylvania Coal Company. Pasquale Salvo and Sandy Castina. Location: Pittston, Pennsylvania, January 1911.

[smirkymonkey]

12. I was surprised to find that there were so many Italians in Pennsylvania.

I thought it was always heavily German and English. Your photos are amazing! I love old photographs. I am sure you must have fond memories of your family's traditions as well. Thank you for sharing!

[tblue37]

13. One thing I have recently noticed, since I am sensitive to Italian names, is that an amazingly high

percentage of people on Trump's side have Italian names. Now, my Sicilian family are Republicans, and I believe a lot of Northeastern Italians are Republican, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I've been seeing an awful lot of obviously Italian surnames in the news since Trump took office.

[smirkymonkey]

14. They unfortunately do tend to be conservative, unless they are highly educated.

Like my brother and I. My parents and other siblings are educated, but not at the level as my brother and I. I'm not sure why we turned out to be liberal whereas they are all still right-wingers. I think that little bit of extra critical thinking might have helped, but I was a raging left-winger in college so I think it has more to do with personality.

My liberal brother and I had a different mother than my two younger siblings so there might be something genetic about one's political viewpoints. I'm not sure, but it's kind of interesting how we all turned out.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. We are doing

a Italian Thanksgiving in honor of our long time Friend who passed on the Nineteenth. Who immigrated form Sicily in 1980. We celebrated many a Italian Thanksgivings with he and his Spouse and in their honor we will do our best to recreate those great feasts. Made the Homemade Sausage this past week,got the Pork Loin and the hand made meatballs in the Freez. Ordered a cake and Almond Cookies from the Italian Deli and Bakery a couple miles away. Picked-up a couple bottles of wine and a of course Amaretto.

Oh and the best part is,all the left overs on Friday,Saturday and maybe even Sunday.

[tblue37]

5. Sounds like my Sicilian-American family's holiday meals, except our soup is a chicken

broth with light amounts of tomato, and with rosa marina (a type of macaroni similar to orzo) in the soup.

Fruit (usually oranges) and nuts go on the long table after the pie eating is over, and everyone sits around the table talking, laughing, and cracking nuts almonds, walnuts, and pecans.

[Polybius]

7. Italian American here

My family didn't make pasta on Thanksgiving, and always had a normal turkey. Never even heard of making brown gravy with it, why would anyone do that? We stuffed it with stuffing, never seen one stuffed with Italian sausage. For dessert we did pumpkin pie and my mom's favorite, lemon meringue. Drinks we had apple cider, the only time of the year it was bought.

For Christmas however, pasta was made in addition to a fresh ham or Virginia ham. Mmm I miss the 80's.

[wishstar]

19. My Italian American family's Thanksgiving traditions:

Started with antipasto (olives, artichoke hearts, roasted red pepper etc.) and liqueurs including amaretto, anisette and my uncle's fermented fruit concoction plus grapes and oranges with mixed nuts to crack and pomegranate to break apart.

The meal always began with baked stuffed artichokes and manicotti. The dressing included Italian sausage. These festive gatherings started at 10 in the morning and continued until dark. Christmas was basically the same except more sweets and desserts including homemade chocolate confections, pizzelles and lemon cream cookies.

[Drahthaardogs]

20. We do the stuffed artichokes the night before

Along with the antipasto. Finger foods while you prep for the next day.