Happy 101st birthday, Nana!

Today is a very special day...it is November first, which means that it is All Saints' Day.  That means that Annie Cate has the day off from scuola.  It would also be my great-grandmother Nana's 101st birthday, if she hadn't died in 2002.  Nana was the best great-grandmother ever, and was also the best cook ever.  So this post is all about food and the things she might ask about it.  (All the pictures have already been used somewhere in this blog, but they are not the only food pictures on this blog.)

"Are you eating lots of pasta in Italy, Bridget?"

Yes Nana, there are lots of different types of pasta in Italy.  They even have pasta shaped like sombreros.

For penne, Gene makes a sauce out of red peppers and milk that sort of tastes like your American chop suey, Nana.  For pappardelle (which is pasta like ribbons) he likes to makes pesto, which has basil, pignole (that means pine nuts in Italian), garlic, olive oil, and formaggio (that means cheese) in it.:

They also have yummy pasta that has pumpkin in it, Nana, but they call pumpkin zucca, which means gourd.  Sometimes they stuff pasta called tortelle or tortellone with zucca.  They usually serve it with a sauce made of butter and sage.

"Does it taste delicious, Bridget?"


Yes Nana.  It tastes delicioso, which is Italian for delicious.  But sometimes there's too much burro, which means butter.




"And do you eat pizza in Italy, Bridget?"


Yes Nana.  

Conor likes pizza margherita, which is cheese pizza, and Annie Cate likes pizza marinara, which is pizza without cheese.  Tara likes her pizza with lots of verdure, which means vegetables, and Gene likes to have meat like prosciutto or speck with gorgonzola, the smelly cheese, or asparagi bianchi, which is white asparagus.


"And what kind of meat do they eat in Italy, Bridget?"

Well, Nana, there's always prosciutto.  There's a place in Marostica where you can get a basket of bread, a plate of cheese (the popular cheese around here is Grana Padano, which is exactly the same as parmagiano, but it's not made in Parma), and a plate of meat and make little sandwiches.

There's also a place in the hills near Tara and Gene's that serves game like cinghiale, which is wild boar (it's yummy, Nana), and cervo, which is deer (that tastes yummy too, but it isn't as good as your beef stew, Nana).  

"And is the deer tendah, Bridget?"


Yes Nana, it's very tender.

They serve it with polenta, which is tasty cornmeal stuff.  I like it with lots of lumps.  You would like polenta a lot, Nana, but it's not as good as your mashed potatoes.

Then there's a fish place where they fillet the fish in front of you. 

But I don't really like fish, Nana, so I didn't really like that.

"You don't like fish?"


Well, tuna's good because that doesn't count as a fish.  And almost any fish is probably better than deep-fried snails, which a lot of people around here like to eat.

"They eat snails?"


Yes Nana, but they call them lumache  because that's their word for snails.


"Those Eye-talians.  Did you eat the snails?"


No Nana.  They are icky.


"What do you eat for breakfast in Italy, Bridget?"


I like Cheerios for breakfast, Nana.


Do you put sliced banana in your Cheerios, Bridget?


No, Nana, just milk.  They call part-skim milk latte parzialmente scremato.

You can also get milk out of the milk dispenser, but you have to either buy a bottle there or remember to bring your own, and it's all whole milk.

"Does everyone have Cheerios for breakfast?"


No, Nana.  They have other cereals too.  And Gene likes to make Nutella crepes, which are thin pancakes with delicious chocolate hazelnut yummy stuff. 

"They eat chocolate for breakfast?"


Yes Nana.  Nutella is sticky like peanut butter, but instead of peanuts it's made of chocolate and hazelnuts.  And milk.  I have a good recipe for Nutella trifle.


"Ain't that rich!  Those Eye-talians, they know about dessert."


Yes Nana.  In the cities there are fancy candy stores and pastry stores where they sell fancy candy.  The licorice is pretty, but I don't like how it tastes.

"Oh, you don't like the licorice?"


No, Nana.  But I like chocolate.  They call it cioccolato.

"Well, ain't that rich."


Yes Nana.  They also have very delicious hot chocolate in Italy.  It's sort of like our hot chocolate and sort of like pudding.

"Oh boy, does that sound good."


It is, Nana.  It is delicioso.  That means delicious.  Once I got white hot chocolate with ground up hazelnuts in it.  They put panna on top.  That means cream.

"Ain't that something!"


Yes, Nana.  There's also this yummy dessert drink called sorbetto that is cold and sweet.  There are lots of different flavors, like caffe (that's coffee), limone (that's lemon), and pompelmo (grapefruit).  I like the grapefruit one.  It's all tangy and tart and it's pale pink.

"Oh, you like grapefruit?  Let me get some for you out of the frigidaire."


Yes Nana.  Thank you Nana.  There are lots of pomegranates here too.  In Italian, pomegranate is melagrana.

A lot of people have pomegranate trees here, but it's past pomegranate season now.


"And do Tara and Gene have a pomegranate tree, Bridget?"


No, Nana.  They have an olive tree.  The past year has been bad for olive trees, but theirs is the worst because it gets practically no light.  It looked scary for Halloween though.

"And do you eat the olives, Bridget?"


Well, Nana, I tried an olive off a tree once (it was a green olive like all the other olives around here), and it tasted icky.  Gene warned me not to eat it.  

It was all bitter, and dry, and just awful.  That's why people put them in brine.  Sometimes people bake them into bread or put them in cheese.   


"Well, it sounds like the Eye-talians grow a lot of food."


Yes Nana.  There are pear trees and persimmon trees around too.  But right now everyone's eating chestnuts.  First you roast them, then you peel off a shell and eat one.  It looks like a brain.

"And do you like the chestnuts, Bridget?"


Yes Nana.  In Italian they are called maroni.  You can buy them at little maroni stands already roasted, or you can buy them raw (or pick them) and roast them yourself.


"And where do Tara and Gene buy their food?"


They get American food on Post, and they get bread at different panetterie, which is Italian for bread bakeries, and they can get lots of different kinds of food at mercati, which means markets.  

There are lots of other places too, like there's a wine place they like, and there's a bakery they go to when they want panettone, which is an Italian cake that I don't really like.

"Oh, you don't like cake?"


Well, Nana, I don't like that cake much, but other cake is good.


"I have some cake in the frigidaire for you.  Let me get it."


Thank you Nana.  You are the best great-grandmother.

Happy birthday, Nana!  Love your face!