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18
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2016
the
Italian
issue
W
hen I was a child, I did not
understand that Sicily was
part of Italy. “My grandmother
is from Sicily” was equivalent to “My
grandmother is from Mobile.” I knew that
it was far away, but that was all. In the
1950s and 60s there were still the lingering
vestiges of close-knit Sicilian families who
spoke the Sicilian dialect with each other. I
didn’t learn it, but it still seems comforting
for me to hear it. It reminds me of the
warmth of family and belonging.
Those times also gave me a set of comfort
foods that are firmly fixed in my taste
memories. I remember daily doses of garlic,
fragrant Parmesan cheese in hunks, black
olives and salami. These things were always
at the ready when a snack was called for.
But there were also slow-cooked meals and
dishes that are etched in memory. And one
of those present-at-every-big-event dishes
is bruccialuna. I can remember standing on
the stool that my Nana kept by the counter
just for me to stand on as we cooked
together. She would butterfly the veal and
place it between two pieces of waxed paper.
I would use an empty wine bottle to pound
it out to an even thickness.
As I recall those simple tasks with my Nana,
I am reminded of how the stories of the
family, the values of life and the cautionary
tales are transmitted effortlessly in the
course of cooking together. Nana’s frugality
was loudly unspoken, but I watched her
save everything for stock, save jars for reuse
and even make note paper of opened up
used envelopes. And always there were bits
of leftover, stale bread.
Nana always kept stale bread. When there
were not breadcrumbs, I would grate the
stale bread into a big bowl until she thought
that we had enough. My uncle had made a
grater out of a piece of sheet metal that he
punctured with a nail. The metal was sized
to slide into a groove onto a box. By grating
on the sharp side of the erupted punctures,
the breadcrumbs would fall into the box to
be collected. (I wasn’t allowed to use this tool
— it was thought to be too dangerous for
me — but I longed to be big enough to use
it.) Nana would add grated Parmesan cheese,
dried oregano and garlic powder, and I would
get to stir it all up. She would add eggs until
we had a good paste. I would get to pat the
breadcrumb mixture onto the flattened meat.
And then we became artistic.
Bruccialuna
by
Liz Williams, President &Director of
Southern Food & Beverage Foundation