Dear Aurora,
Around the time your of cousin T's birth Nana came to visit me. During that visit she revealed the family secret. Nana’s specialty was Italian cuisine, not because she was Italian, but because she was a redheaded, Irish maiden who married into an off-the-boat Italian family. Pop-pop’s parents were immigrants. They peppered our conversations with many words from their native tongue. I remember being in college and getting letters from grandmother written by a neighbor because she never mastered the art of writing in English.
When Pop-pop set eyes on Nana for the first time at a party for the staff of St. Vincent’s hospital in New York City he knew he was going to marry her, and in October of 1958, that’s just what he did. It wasn’t easy going for my mother though, the Italian traditions were strong in this family and she was an outsider. Food is an important part of the Italian culture, and a few Sunday’s per month after church we arrived at my grandparent’s house and joined our extended family for a traditional Italian meal. Salad, pasta with sauce, oil-cured olives, homemade pizza (this was similar to foccacia bread), homemade red wine in gallon green glass jugs and pizzelles or canolli for dessert.
In order to gain entrance into this family my mother learned how to cook like an Italian and her tomato sauce was better than any that I have ever had. Your older cousins used to call it “Grandma Joan’s secret sauce". My mother never wrote down recipes. You had to watch her cook in order to know how to get that specific taste that made it the best tomato sauce in the whole world. During her visit I participated in the ritual of passing down this wonderful secret recipe to the next generation as I watched and mentally wrote the recipe down.
I made the secret sauce last night for dinner, I always marvel when I get it just right and I can revel in the presence of my mother (if only by spirit) for that brief window of time.
My daughter is coming home soon; maybe it’s time for her to learn a family secret. Someday your mom will pass the secret on to you too.
And The Gift goes on.......
Love, Aunt Cassandra
PS Aunt Carissa edited this letter so all the spelling errors are hers.
Do you have a special food memory you would like to share?