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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Three
Spring 2004
Italian-American Foodways: A Personal and Academic Look Into Sunday Dinner - Page 1
by
Joseph DiPiazza
Italian-American foodways is a discipline of study that examines how food habits and eating customs amongst Italian-Americans are connected to their culture. This paper will examine how the foodways of Italian-Americans define them in the context of family and unity, social identity, and changing gender roles. Using the framing of theoretical ideas from the texts of Camp, Noyes, and Hogg, this paper will apply folkloristic, anthropological, psychological, and sociological analysis to Italian-American Folklore and The Milk of Almonds, two case texts composed of studies, essays, memoirs and artistic work based on Italian-Americans and their culture. Ultimately, these works will all connect to my customary experience as an Italian-American in one focal context—Sunday dinner in my family and how this event identifies us as Italian-Americans who are part of a community.
One of the most enduring customs I have experienced growing up around Italian-American culture is Sunday dinner. In my Italian-American family, weekly Sunday dinner consists of the entire immediate family congregating around a multi-course meal, discussing events, sharing stories, and enjoying the unity of the family. Deborah Mele, an Italian-American food enthusiast and webmaster, explains the courses of an Italian dinner on her website, which showcases several different areas and aspects of Italian cooking. There are generally four courses consisting of Antipasto (appetizer), Primi Piatti (first course), Secondi Piatti (second course), and Dolci (dessert) (Mele). Between the first and second course is a time for relaxation, conversing with relatives, and playing with the children. All of my immediate and extended family including aunts, uncles, and cousins flock to my grandparents’ house to partake in our customs. Every week when we have dinner together, we continue to engage in a custom that is common amongst Italian-Americans—the appreciation of family and togetherness. In the study of foodways, or the juncture of food and culture, the family is not only gathered to eat, but is engaging in a ritual by which they strengthen and celebrate their familial ties.
The assessment of foodways involves an interdisciplinary approach to food and culture encompassing combinations of views from groups such as anthropologists, folklorists, and nutritionists to name a few. In his article “American Foodways: What, When, Why and How We Eat in America,” Charles Camp, a folklorist, defines foodways as the intersection of food and culture (24). From the perspective of a folklorist, cultures are examined in terms of the way a group interacts with food on all levels from the acquisition of foodstuffs to preparation through consumption. In this manner, food is seen not only for what it offers a group nutritionally but also symbolically in defining customs, norms, or beliefs of a society.
A crucial idea in Camp’s examination of foodways is the food event, or the occasion in which food plays a part (28).
To press this point a bit further, we must look not only to those special cultural moments when all can agree that food is saying something about and for us—the cutting of a multi-tiered wedding cake, the giving of Halloween candy to masked trick-or-treaters—but also to the more ordinary customs which mark daily, weekly, and seasonal cycles of food preparation and consumption. (Camp 24)
This quote describes the very nature of food events that verify the social aspects behind food and eating. Camp describes these events as “special cultural moments,” whether it be cutting a wedding cake or giving candy to trick-or-treaters, because these moments are significant whether we realize it or not. We often take the role food plays in our social lives for granted. To use Camp’s example, the whole connotation surrounding Sunday dinner in my family would not be the same if it were not for food. Metaphorically, it acts as glue that binds us and holds us together-reason for us to come together every week. Sharing food, enjoying each other’s company, and keeping our familial ties strong-this is what our weekly custom is about; it’s not about eating to simply satisfy hunger.
To reiterate this idea, let us continue to examine what Camp calls “the more ordinary customs which mark daily, weekly, and seasonal cycles of food preparation and consumption” (24). Why are they important to the significance of Italian-American food and culture? In my family, Sunday dinner follows a weekly cycle of routine and preparation that unfolds exactly the same way every week-the same way one would consider the chronological events of mass in a church or the innings in a baseball game. At 1:00 in the afternoon everyone starts piling in for dinner. There are the same people present every week-aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, parents and grandparents. Every person has his own informally assigned seat (it would actually be considered rude to sit anywhere else because then you would be in someone else’s seat). For as long back as I can remember and even to this day, my Uncle Bobby gets the end piece of a loaf of Italian bread (which is considered to be the best part for its crunchiness) reserved for him every week. As for the other ends, it’s every man for himself. Minute details like these are just small aspects of the feast described earlier. Yet, they are important in understanding what makes our custom unique. In creating specific rituals and traditions, the most inconspicuous details of time, smells, and practices like the ones aforementioned are truly important when studying Camp’s customs that mark cycles of food preparation and consumption. These are what he calls “special cultural moments” because they make our experience unique and are symbolic of our very own customs. Great festive Sunday dinners like mine may be commonplace amongst Italian-Americans in general, but the special details inherent in my family’s account, like the ones just described, are what makes it our own family event. Whether it is now or several years in the future, when I think back on Sunday dinner at this time, it will not be some vague or hazy memory of a bunch of relatives coming over for dinner. On the contrary, it will be the familiar faces I am used to seeing every week, the same traditional sequence of dishes (antipasto, primi, secondi, and dolci), and the silly little details about which chair was mine and who got the end of the bread that will illuminate my memories within the broader picture of celebration of unity and maintaining familial bonds.
Further, my experiences are fortified when compared to the case studies in the book Italian-American Folklore. In this piece, which is a work that comprises interviews and studies in conversation, traditions, stories, music, and food of the Italian culture, authors Frances Malpezzi, a researcher, and William Clements, a folklorist, also describe Sunday dinner as a significant traditional custom in the lives of Italian-Americans.
Earlier in the century when Italian laborers worked long hours six days a week, Sunday provided their only opportunity for socializing: it was a time for gorging, a time for catching up on the week’s gossip, a time for continuation of old arguments and the invention of new ones, a time for venting frustrations. It would be a total day, a day filled with eating, drinking, women preparing meals, talking, political arguing, and storytelling. The meals seemed never to stop: First the appetizer, later the pastry and coffee, an hour after that sandwiches, then you start the supper-one meal leading to another, without end. (82)
Why are these elaborate weekly rituals so important? These are the “food events” that Camp describes—an occasion in which food plays a role. It is a day of gorging and relaxation and part of a custom that dates back to the early twentieth century. After a grueling work week, Italian laborers could look forward to Sundays as a day of relaxation and indulgence. Great feasts like the one described in my account and in Italian-American Folklore acted as a buffer to the arduous task of going back to work on Monday, both in the past and currently, and allotted a set amount of time for familial gathering. Above all, as Malpezzi and Clements point out, “this custom often involved a reaffirmation of group identity—the family, as has usually been the case with Italian-American Sunday observances” (83).
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