1. You cancel all other plans for Sunday Dinner.
If we are being honest with ourselves Sunday Dinner is missed for nothing. No really I mean absolutely nothing. At least, by middle school all of your friends have come to the realization that you will never be free to hang out on Sundays (and truthfully you are quite all right with this). This also means that when it comes time to picking a college obviously only schools in driving distance are viable options because it is a necessity to make it home every weekend for the Sunday afternoon dish of macaroni and garlic knots and meatballs and desserts.
2. You refer to everyone as a cousin but you have no idea if you’re actually related.
We have all experienced being out somewhere and hearing some variation of “Oh my, you must be Nicky’s daughter, I am your cousin Lisa!” and it’s not uncommon to just stand there in disbelief because you have never seen this person before in your life. Nonetheless, from that point on that person will always be referred to as Cousin Lisa and to this day, you’re still not quite sure if they are even the slightest bit related to you.
3. You are never able to say no to Grandma’s cooking (not that you want to).
Going out to lunch and then deciding to visit Grandma is a rookie mistake. More often than not the second you step into the doorway of Grandma’s house you are offered anything ranging from cookies to pies to meatballs to soup but no matter how full you think you are you graciously (and happily) oblige. By the time you leave you have eaten enough food for a week but there is no better feeling because nothing is better than grandma’s cooking.
4. Nothing shouts Christmas Eve like the smell of the seven fish.
With every Christmas Eve the aroma of smelts become more and more tolerable (thank god), but if there is one thing everyone looks forward to all year is the Christmas Eve seafood salad. The feast of the seven fish is an Italian tradition dating back until the beginning of time. Many people look forward to the traditional Christmas Eve ham, but for us Italians it is just a whole lot of fish (seven to be exact).
5. Believing your way of pronouncing food is the only way of pronouncing food.
Talking to other Italian’s can be an eye-opening experience because you realize that unfortunately they have no clue how to pronounce even the most basic Italian foods. Obviously, the way you pronounce ricotta, gnocchi, and manicotti is the correct (and only) pronunciation and everyone else is just wrong. It’s all right though we still love them.
6. Not being able to eat anyone else’s sauce other than Grandma’s
Going to an Italian restaurant and avoiding ordering anything with traditional pasta sauce is a feeling we know all too well, simply because we are hesitant to try a sauce that is not grandmas (obviously no sauce will top grandma's sauce and that is not a risk I am willing to take).
As a kid, it was always a struggle going to a friends house for dinner, especially if the meal that night is pasta. Nothing is worse than sitting down at the dinner table only to realize that dinner is macaroni and the sauce is the dreaded Ragu. No matter how much of an effort you make to swallow this impostor of a sauce, it just won’t compare to that of your Grandma’s.
7. You’re guilty of talking with your hands
The stereotype “Italians talk with their hands to express themselves” is 100 percent true, or at least for me. During a conversation, it is totally normal to accidentally knock over whatever is on the table next to you because no conversation is complete without hands flailing 100 miles an hour in every which direction. Talking with our hands is just a testament to our mouths being too full of food to talk.
8. You have no concept of an inside voice.
In my family, it is not uncommon for someone to start a story and then everyone else proceed to talk louder than them only for the entire room to progressively speak at higher and higher levels of volume. We speak at a deafening volume and it happens more often than not that someone tells me to stop yelling only for me to be confused because I am using my “inside voice”. Yelling is a perfectly normal form of communication, right?
9. You always have room for more.
If there is one thing I have learned over the years it is that there is always room for more, especially dessert (because that is obviously a different compartment in your stomach). Sitting down at Sunday dinner and finishing up your eighth bowl of macaroni you believe that there is not a chance you could possibly consume any more food, that is until your aunt brings out her famous array of desserts and then it is like you are hungry all over again. It is a wonderful skill us Italians have, it allows for us to eat everything in sight which is our most famous quality.
10. Family is everything.
It is as simple as that; your family is everything and nothing will ever change that. Not many people understand why your grandma’s house is your favorite place to hangout, how your cousin is your best friend in the world, or what it feels like to have a whole army of people to love and support you. I have been blessed with the greatest gift that could ever be attained, my big Italian family.
