52 Ancestors Week 49: Homemade

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 49 is "Homemade." For many of our ancestors, "homemade vs store-bought" wasn't an option. Do you have an ancestor who was known for making things? (My great-grandmother was renowned for her pies.) Do you have something made by an ancestor? Who made it? Tell the story.

Nothing is more homemade than your grandma's needlepoint sampler, right?
Heh. Wait a bit....

 WARNING: The following blog may make you, the reader, very hungry. We here at "All Roads Lead to Haverhill" can not legally be held liable for the following actions: The licking of screens. The calls to Dominoes at 11 pm. And the subsequent rumbling of stomachs. If you feel yourself having any of these urges, feel free to navigate away from here and visit our sister site, Starbolt Productions. The adventures of the next generation of Earth's mightiest heroes should entertain you while you await your meal. Thank you and please enjoy the blog.

    I'm sure glad I got that out of the way! I don't want to be held liable for any mishaps or rumbling of stomachs. Our lawyers have insisted on a disclaimer after the last time I put Italian food in the blog. Poor guy ate his iPhone. It's okay. Apple released a new one the next year and you just know he bought one. Everyone is fine! We hope!

She made this for my parents! So cool!

    When it comes to homemade products, my family tends to go all out. My grandmother Natalie was very proficient in needlepoint and her afghans made for awesome forts I'm not going to lie. However, for every needlepoint and afghan she had there were these wool sweaters that were just hot and itchy. They didn't last long and I think I still have one buried in the depths of a drawer. I think it belongs in a museum!

    My mother's side has always excelled at crafting all kinds of things. For example, my aunt Linda makes doggie beds that can easily double for cat beds. My father's side has also made some great things! Rather than talk about that, we should talk about homemade Italian cooking. There's really nothing else like it in the world!

    

    You could go to any Italian restaurant on the planet and order one of their many savory dishes and it won't taste like homemade no matter what the advertisement on the menu says. The meals may come close to what your grandmother or other relatives may make but there's just something missing from the food. I say it's love. That's the missing ingredient! Homemade Italian food will always be beyond whatever I might have at my local Italian restaurant and trust me as I resident of the Merrimack valley there are a LOT OF THEM! Sigh...Even Olive Garden.

The vegetable prison, May 2020.

    The journey to fine homemade Italian cooking begins here at the garden. For as long as I can remember, we've had a garden where we'd plant everything from tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, green beans and cucumbers and turn them into the best tasting meals anyone ever had. The Salem High Cross Country team didn't have any complaints! We even have the tools of the trade handed down from master Italian chefs like my great-grandmother, Clementina Forgione. 

    Clementina was known for cooking many delectable meals that were hard to duplicate but easy to imitate according to grandma Ollie and her sisters. She would make homemade pasta with a very old rolling pin and make homemade ravioli as well using a special ravioli cutter. Both utensils are in the kitchen and we bring them out whenever we want to make something fresh. In fact, my father has used it to make his own homemade pizza! I think Clementina would be proud of him for that. Meanwhile a second cousin of mine has her eggplant parmesan recipe!

Hungry?

    Recently my parents went to a pizza making course at Tuscan Kitchen, which is an Italian restaurant in Salem. My father already had an idea how to make pizza as he's seen it done before. But, he wanted to go the extra mile by creating his own pizza complete with homemade mozzarella cheese and sauce. Making the sauce wasn't hard. It's old news to us. The trick was getting the dough to rise just right for this delectable Neapolitan-style pizza. You like? Of course you do. Moving on! This is just the primo corso!

    Only the freshest ingredients go into these dishes. My father insisted on everything being fresh. Why? Well, it makes sense. It wouldn't taste good otherwise!

     If you don't like marinara sauce, that's fine. My mother has you covered with pesto sauce. Wait, you say. My mother's not Italian. How could she possibly make such delectable goodies? You're right. She's not Italian. That doesn't mean she can't learn from the best. Re: My grandmother. Or learn all on her own. She does a great job and living with an Italian man like my father for fifty years probably helps a bit.

    I would recommend putting the sauce on tortellini or on various other pasta. Do not use it as a spread. A special type of pesto is usually used for that. It's good for bread dipping, by the way! I would have that with some hard provolone and some cured meat like soppressata.

    The last time we made pesto, one of my cousins who lives in Rome suggested we also cook small courgette or a potato cut into small pieces and put it into the sauce. The do it in Liguria and it sounds so good! I'll have to try it sometime!

    The secondo corso is a tried and true favorite in my house. It's my mother's lasagna! I don't remember when she started making it and I'm a bit sketchy on why she started making it. I didn't care. It's a delectable dish that my grandma Ollie was impressed with. It's a meal she made all by herself using the finest Barilla noodles and it turned out so good. We usually have this dish every Thanksgiving to go along with our usual turkey and all the fixings. It's good and will definitely put you into a food coma. Don't worry. You'll happily go there. It's just that good. My brother requests it every Thanksgiving and his wife, who is also half Italian, has tried to duplicate the meal herself. She's had some success! It just takes time and practice!

    The ingredients are simple. Homemade sauce + noodles + basil + different types of cheese (Ricotta, Mozzarella and Parmesan)= a meal fit for a king. Okay. I hope you have room for dessert! Normally, I go for gelato (Italian ice cream) or a cannoli. But, for Thanksgiving 2020 my father made a dish that caused our cousins in Italy to drool. I'm not kidding. I thought they would leap through the computer and nab a piece because it looked so good. AND IT WAS! Unfortunately the pandemic ruined many plans. We finally were able to go visit my brother and his family for just this past Thanksgiving. Get yourselves vaccinated!

    On Facebook, another Italian cousin chimed in and asked if I ever had Calabrian-style lasagna and I had to tell him "no". He said I should try it sometime because it's pretty good. I've looked at pictures and it looks really heavy! Check it out! Different areas of Italy have different ways of preparing their many dishes. There's no "wrong" way to do it. Much like America, Italy has different regions that specialize in different food and alter certain recipes. Arancini (rice balls) in the north is going to be different than in the south. It's the same in every country you go to because each area specializes in a certain variation of the same dish.

You won't get this at the Cheesecake Factory!

    Il dolce is a mascarpone cannoli cheesecake. My father had been making dessert for years on Christmas eve and consisted of lady fingers, strawberries, blueberries, pudding, whipped cream and other fruits. However, he wanted to try his hand at making a cheesecake for Thanksgiving 2020. The dish came courtesy of the Food Network and Giada de Laurentis. You can see the recipe here.

    The results speak for themselves. It was so good! For a special topping we used special imported berries and juice to give it just the right amount of sweetness. The dessert went over well and I hope my father makes it again sometime in the not too distant future!

Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione

    Italian cooking will always have a special place in my heart. It's half of my heritage and let's be honest the food is VERY good. I've learned to make some of my own dishes. I can whip up some quick pesto using dried basil, garlic and olive oil in a pinch. 

    As for my other half? My mother doesn't really have any French-Canadian recipes. I think she may have had a pea soup recipe passed down and she and her siblings didn't care for it too much. Growing up I mostly had Italian cuisine and my mother was always more than happy to prepare it for us. Italian recipes, like recipes from cultures all over the world, are passed down through the generations and I'm grateful to have had some of Clementina's cooking that was passed down to her daughters and her grandchildren. Now that's a legacy I can sink my teeth into!

Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco

    Part of me always wondered what dishes Maria Tedesco made. My other Italian great-grandmother passed away four years before my father was born. Naturally, my great-aunt Nicolina told me about the various Calabrian dishes she would make and she did cook for us when we visited her.

    I suppose I'll never know. But, we still have Clementina's recipes and the tools she used to make fine Italian cooking at home. And in the end that's what matters. Every culture has their own style of cooking and it's good to see it passed down from generation to generation.

See ya next time!