Tag Archives: italian

St. Anthony of Padova statue for good weather

Nationality: Italian
Age: 82
Occupation: House-wife
Residence: Massachusetts
Performance Date: March 13, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

My informant told me a superstition passed onto her from her italian grandmother:

“To insure good weather, place statue of St. Anthony of Padova in the window facing outward.”

She told me that she does not usually follow this, mostly because statues of St. Anthony are hard to come by in the United States. In Italy, her grandmother had many little statues, and around the time fo the harvest she would put them facing outward in all of the windows. Although my informant does not practice this belief, she still believes in it.

I have heard many different superstitions about the weather, so this one does not surprise me. I was interested in the fact that my informant did not practice it, but stil does carry on the belief. I assume that the statue is placed facing outward in order to interact with the weather that is outside.

 

Italian Toast

Nationality: Italian-American
Performance Date: February 2007

“This wine is good and clear.
Good health to everyone.
Hope they bring to the cemetery the ones
who wanted to do away with it.”

This saying has been passed down through the paternal side of my family, who are all of Italian heritage.  My father’s grandparents were immigrants in the early twentieth century and were the last to speak Italian fluently in my father’s genealogy.  Some of my older relatives still remember this saying, however, and have said it on occasion though it is obsolete.  My father begins it when toasting to his family, but never gets past the first sentence.  As it involves Prohibition (1920-1933), its terminus post quem is 1920.  As recent immigrants, my great grandparents had left a country where good wine was plentiful and many people drank it daily, and were now faced with an across-the-board ban on every kind of alcoholic beverage.  According to my informant, the Italian men who immigrated near this time would continue to make wine that their families would drink, keeping it hidden in their cellars while brewing.  When the wine was finished and illegally drunk, a toast such as this would be offered.  This particular saying was either created or picked up by one of my father’s grandparents, and as my family has increasingly forgotten Italian (I know essentially none), the saying has remained, whether or not my relatives are aware that it is an anachronism.  Though it is obsolete, it reminds us of our common heritage and of my great-grandparents (now deceased) and their families.

Catholic/Italian Headache Remedy

Nationality: Italian American
Performance Date: April 2007

My paternal grandmother, who is of Italian heritage and a second-generation American, described a folk remedy against headaches that was practiced before her day.  She said “When a person had a headache, a friend would obtain a basin of water and sprinkle a few drops of olive oil on it, make the sign of the cross and recite a prayer.  That was to chase the evil spirits away.”  This was also used to make a person stop gossiping.  Obviously, this would have been practiced before her family emigrated and assimilated into American culture.  It is closely tied to the Catholic church and Catholicism’s deep roots in the nation of Italy.  My informant, while still a devout Catholic (as is most of her extended family), did refer to this practice as a superstition, and is far more likely to resort to Tylenol or Advil to relieve a headache than to attempt to cure it through any spiritual means.
The tradition itself seems to reflect elements of both Catholicism (sign of the cross, prayer) and more obscure or pagan religions (chasing away evil spirits), though perhaps my informant uses “evil spirits” synonymously with “demons.”  My informant’s description also seems somewhat vague and incomplete, as though it has been transformed through much telling and retelling over time.  My conjecture is that the tradition originated many centuries ago, well before the advent of modern medicine, out of the idea that demons or evil spirits are responsible for physical distress.  Certainly “magic superstitions,” under which classification this ritual falls, for curing ailments have existed well before even the Roman Catholic Church, and this one was likely Catholicized like many other pagan beliefs, superstitions, and even holidays.  As today’s society (at least in America) tends to favor scientific progress as the solution to medical problems (and a host of other problems), beliefs imported from worldwide have tended to fade out in this forward-looking culture.

Recipe – Baccala (Cod Fish Stew)

Nationality: Italian-American
Performance Date: April 2007

The following recipe is from the Italian (paternal) side of my family.  The principal ingredient is salt cod or baccala.  This dish was served on Good Friday every year before Easter.  Though my paternal family, who are mainly Catholics, do not abstain from meat as part of the tradition of Lent any longer, their ancestors did.  Fish, however, was not counted among the other meats, and was allowed during Lent.  This recipe would have been one of the last served before the breaking of the fast on Easter Sunday.  According to my informant, the salting and aging of the fish improves the flavor.  This celebratory dinner likely helped to mitigate whatever sense of deprivation anyone (at least fish lovers) felt during the meatless fast.  My family also ate the same dish after the midnight Mass at Christmas (!!!).

Baccala (Cod Fish Stew)

Heat:
1/4 c. vegetable oil in a Dutch oven

Add:
sliced onions:    4 large sliced
potatoes:     6 large peeled & cut in chunks
tomatoes:    2 large cans
1 piece of salted codfish which has been soaking 48 hrs. to get the salt out, changing the water frequently

Boil until potatoes are almost done.  Add the rest of the cod fish.

My informant added: “I buy around 1 lb. [of salt cod] at the Italian store.  This makes a great stew, but only I like it of my siblings!!”

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

Performance Date: April 2007

This special feast was a tradition that my father’s father observed with his family before he married.  According to my informant, this was the traditional meal of Christmas Eve.  After going to church to attend the midnight Mass before Christmas Day, my grandfather’s family would come home and eat Seven Fishes Dinner, quite a generous meal, during the wee hours of Christmas morning.  As my mother has always aimed to have dinner on the table around six or seven o’clock, I found this quite shocking, but my informant added that they did not arrive home until around one in the morning to enjoy the feast.  This feast obviously included several varieties of seafood, not limited to just fish.  My informant recalled salt cod, shrimp, and calamari/squid, as examples of items my great grandfather ate on Christmas morning.

Annotation/additional comments:
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in an article on Dec. 22, 2005 (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05356/625983.stm), recognizes the Seven Fishes of Christmas Eve as an Italian tradition and describes a restaurant owning family’s variation of the feast.  Their meal includes “scrod florentine, breaded filets in a bed of spinach; anchovies olio, pasta cooked with oil, garlic and the salty fish; linguine with white clam sauce; fried calamari rings,” and “deep-fried smelts, decapitated and marinated in lemon.”  This is the meal they serve at home, not at the restaurant.  The family also serves the feast as a special at their restaurant.
In the article, the main chef adds that there are “many theories” regarding the meaning behind the Seven Fishes of Christmas Eve.  He claims, “It has always meant the Seven Sacraments,” adding that some families celebrate with twelve or even thirteen varieties of seafood, to represent the twelve disciples and Jesus.  He suggests that the arms of the squid may have symbolic significance (“how God reaches out to us”), and that “the eel was supposed to be the speed in which Jesus’ word travels through the world.”
Many changes in the feast have been made over the years in this family, including the removal of eel from the menu and of the heads from the fish, and obviously many changes have occurred in various communities since whenever this tradition began.  According to the newspaper article, this family also celebrates their feast after seven o’clock rather than midnight like my grandfather.  Regardless of the variations in religious symbolism and details of the menu, this traditional feast illustrates the role of food in uniting and defining a culture, in this case Italians or Italian Catholics.