Our Italian ancestors who came here at the beginning of the 20th century spoke their language flavored with a local dialect: Napolitano, Roman, Sicilian. For the most part, they understood each other.

As they adapted to life in America many learned English. Some spoke their new language but didn’t quite master the written word.

Who can blame them? English is hard, with its heteronyms (such as bass: the instrument vs. the fish, or produce: to create vs. fresh foods) and homonyms (bear: to carry vs. the animal). Then there are the regional differences that make it hard for even a lifelong English speaker to get by (soda, tonic, pop). Let’s not even get started with lay/lie/lain vs. lei/lye/lane.

When my grandmother, originally from Montescaglioso, wrote down her recipe for what I’ll call a large Italian style bagel, she titled it “biskuit” because it was pronounced “bish-KOOT.” In the years since she handed me that treasure, I’ve seen recipes people call ciambelle, taralli and Roman biscotti, but none of them resemble her boiled-then-baked taste treat. They will always remain biskuit in my mind.

But other than biskuits, she taught me her family recipes by word of mouth with a demonstration: the same way she learned. There were the standards: chicken soup and tomato sauce, frittata and pasta fazool, wands and struffole. And the more exotic: snails, tripe and wild mushrooms with chili pepper.

The nuns never taught THAT in our Italian class"

My mother and her brothers never learned to speak the Italian language, but sprinkled their dialog with Italian words and phrases they had learned at home and in the neighborhood. Sometimes to put one over on the kids, who shouldn’t hear such things in English.

So which Italian words did we learn first?

It was a real education watching The Sopranos with closed captions. I knew what the interspersed Italian words they spoke meant from their context; I’d heard them growing up. But I had no idea how the words were written.

First, there’s your southern Italian tradition of random dropped vowels or even whole syllables at the end of words. At the deli counter, I’ll order prosciut’ and have to translate it for most servers to prosciutto - sliced very thin, thank you. But salami is always salami. Mozzarell’ and ricot’ are cheeses for calzon’. We keep the ‘a’ in pizza and drop the ‘e’ in calzone.

“Don’t rush the cook or you might be told “Aspet!” - short for tu aspetare! - and translated as “Just hang on!”

Then there are the run-together phrases. Pasta e fagioli is pronounced pasta fazool. I once asked what fanabile! - a term of exasperation and bastardization of a fa Napoli - really means and learned that it’s “see Naples and die.” Naples was not a great place to visit, obviously. As a third generation Italian-American who doesn’t speak Italian, I’ve got a reasonable vocabulary of Italian nouns, but I’m seriously short on verbs and modifiers. Other than “Ho fame. Che ore sono?” (I’m hungry. What time is it?), which I learned because our Italian class was right before lunch, I would not be able to construct a sentence let alone carry on a conversation in Italian. Our first dinner on our Italian honeymoon found me ordering rognoni di vitello and a carafe of red wine at a romantic, out of the way sidewalk café in Rome. Yeah, I’ve got this. Vitello means veal, so I was willing to try whatever preparation the chef provided. I missed the rognoni di part meaning kidneys of!

“Want some more gravy on that ziti?”

Back in the day it was common for second generation Italians to marry other Italians. They lived in the same neighborhoods, went to the same high schools and many married right after graduation. With similar backgrounds, there were no arguments about what to eat - Sunday dinner was pasta and chicken cacciatore, or where to vacation - the Jersey Shore. But what do we call that red stuff that goes on the spaghetti? Gravy or sauce?

It was always sauce in my grandparents’ house. You didn’t even have to call it red sauce as white or clam sauce were never on the menu. My uncle’s wife’s family, however, called it gravy. My dad’s ancestors were not Italian, so in our house gravy was made from meat drippings and served from a gravy boat. No tomatoes need apply.

I probably embarrassed mom early on at Uncle Frank’s house, by asking what “they” all meant by ziti with gravy.


Our neighborhood had a ten-block-long shopping district anchored at one end by a card shop and at the other by the bakery / pastry shop / food store. Between them was an incredibly narrow fish market; stores selling fruits and vegetables, hardware, clothing, shoes, poultry, liquor, Italian ices or flowers; a dry cleaner; bread bakery; dessert bakery; Chinese laundry; upholstery shop; soda fountain; butcher shop; pharmacy; deli; public library; bank; laundromat; barber shop; travel agent; a sausage shop with beautiful, cured meats hanging in the window; two bars; one pizzeria; and an exceedingly small A&P.

There were no enclosed malls in the region, and the super store concept was just catching on out on the major highways.

All the food stores, except the butcher shop, were owned by Italian-American families.

We lived just one and a half blocks from the center of this bounty, and we shopped local.

The farmers market down by the railroad tracks was where my grandfather bought wine grapes by the case every autumn. The open air stalls offered fresh cut Christmas trees, live plants and flowers, and fruit by the case in season.

Everything sold by weight was weighed in pounds and ounces. No one did metric.

Now, every item packaged by weight shows both its Imperial and Metric weight or volume. In our increasingly global marketplace, manufacturers make an effort to meet the needs of all countries with a single package.

Some products also have translations into so many languages that finding a list of ingredients in your alphabet, let alone your language, has become a challenge.

But the good part is I’ve finally become bilingual.

One liter is about a quart. A 500g bag of pasta weighs slightly more than a pound. When the recipe calls for the oven to be heated to 170C, that translates to 350F.

And being so close to Puerto Rico, many of the products in our stores bear Spanish names - exclusively. I’ve become grateful for the “serving suggestion” photos. If I can’t see what’s in the package, as long as there’s a photo, I’ll figure it out.

I just hope no kidneys are involved.

Learn more about the Italian-American experience from the Library of Congress at https://www.loc.gov/collections/working-in-paterson/articles-and-essays/twenty-first-avenue-place-of-conjunction/italians-on-the-avenue/

Carroll, Thomas D, and Martha Cooper. Exterior, front, of Giannella's Bakery, 298 21st Avenue. United States New Jersey Paterson, 1994. -08-15. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/afcwip000993/