Nonna's pizza
I just rediscovered my grandmother's recipe for Sicilian pizza,
old-country style
something you'll never find in an American pizzeria
a unique old-world taste
I had not tasted
since she died 20 years ago.
When I bit into it, childhood among my big Sicilian extended family flooded back to life
Nonna always had platters heaped with her pizza whenever we were there
A sudden recovery of my childhood
and our vibrant ethnic life
I'd thought was long lost
Cooking reconnects me to my foremothers
especially to her, who I learned from directly
whose life bridged the two continents
When I had first begun to study
Italian language and Italian cuisine
at the age of 12
I overheard my father tell a coarse joke
at the expense of women like his mother
that the secret of true Italian cooking
is the mama dripping sweat as she works
and seasoning the pot with it
Crude and sexist, yes,
but also revealing a certain truth
about how hard moms work for their families
and those with big families like theirs
worked all the harder
As I was making Nonna's pizza again
writing the recipe in my mind as I went along
I thought: Seven cloves of garlic…
My parents, my four sisters, and I number seven
I put in my recipe the number seven
in commemoration of our family bond
all the memories we shared
all the pain and love from the years
Now I'm the Sicilian grandma
seasoning her cooking
with her tears
Ti amo, Nonna