Growing up in North Jersey with an Italian-American family is honestly the best. There are many things about Italian families that are known and many that are not. The misconceptions about Italian families are things we find hysterical. No, my life is not like a "Bronx Tale" or "Goodfellas," hate to break it to you. And guess what? I do eat something other than pasta, I know, hard to believe! But all joking aside, growing up with Italian roots is the best way to grow up because there is such a strong sense of family and love that trumps all others. Here are 18 things Italian kids know to be true.
1. Is Your Family In The Mob?
In high school, I was constantly asked if my family was a part of the mob, if I could put a hit on people, and things to that effect. In my opinion, these people have watched "The Godfather" a few too many times (something I never thought was possible). It gets to a point the only answer that makes people be quiet is, "I don't know, do you want to find out?" I mean maybe somewhere along the way someone may have known someone with association, but who am I to talk about it?
2. Sunday Dinner
To non-Italians, Sunday is a day to relax, catch up on homework, and watch football. To Italians, football still gets watched, but the day is the furthest thing from relaxing. Your day starts before 8 a.m. because your mom needs you to start cooking. The gravy takes about five hours on simmer to cook, the meatballs are easy but you need to make like three batches, plus we didn't even go to Fairway to pick up the stuff for the antipasto yet. It's an all day event to the point that by the time dinner comes (at 2:30 p.m. I should add) you're exhausted. Then you have to do all the dishes as soon as dinner is done because God forbid they sit in the sink for a little. Then and only then, you can finally watch football.
3. Nanny's Cookies
Every family has the one person who's food you can't turn down; in my family, it's my grandma's cookies. Of course, her cooking of chicken parm, gravy, and eggplant are great as well, but her cookies really take the cake (see what I did there?). She makes the absolute best pizzelles, nacatolis, and struffoli to the point where when you're done you are in a complete food coma.The pizzelles are so light and airy that you don't even realize you're eating 20 of them until they're gone.
4. The Most Deceiving Thing Ever
At first glance and you think that there are yummy butter cookies in this tin, but then you think to yourself, "Why are the cookies at the top of the closet?" Then you open the tin and to your disappointment, it's full of needles, thread, and measuring tape. My grandma and now my mother, use cookie tins as sewing kits for the pure torture of their children/ grandchildren. Every time you were expecting something different but every time there was the same result, no cookies.
5. Punishment
To most people, soap is just something you wash your body with in the shower but to Italians it is the worst and most disgusting punishment ever. If you curse in front of your family expect this bar of soap to be rubbed across your tongue until you gag. Some families use a wooden spoon but my brother and I were never bad enough for that. We also got threatened with a hook needle but that was only used when you said something really bad.
6. Accent
Being from North Jersey plus being Italian means that the accent is inevitable. Both of my parents grew up in Fairview, the locals pronounce it Faih- view. There is absolutely no "R" in their slang. Water becomes wau-tah, brother/ sister become brotha and sista, over becomes O-vah, and so on. Besides the lack of Rs I also say things like coffee, dog, and talk like caw-fee, dawg, and tawk. I don't know if it's just me, but my non-Italian friends will make me order when we go out to eat just so they can hear me say mozzarella and calamari because I cringe when they say them exactly as they're spelt. It's not our fault (fawwlt) it's in the DNA.
7. Holidays
Being Italian, my family cooks for 100 people when there's only 10 of us there on a Sunday. When the holidays come around, we cook for about 500 and there's 20 of us. La festa di sette pesci is probably the most well known Italian holiday tradition. On Christmas Eve we cook seven fish as a representation of the seven sacraments. Other traditions include how on New Year's Eve we put lentils in our pockets because lentils bring money, on Easter we eat ham to symbolize the lack of meat we have been eating during lent, and on Christmas Day we have either lasagna or manicotti for absolutely no reason at all.
8. Love of Mob Movies
As previously mentioned, our families are not in the mob nor do they relate to many things in mob movies other than the dinner scenes ("Goodfellas," both the jail scene and at the house), but we still love them more than life. "A Bronx Tale" may be one of my favorite movies ever made. If someone says to you "Sonny had five fingers" and your response isn't "but he only used three" something is wrong with you. We love them for the food, the family, and the values because those are very treasured within our culture.
9. Music
My grandparents love music just as much as any teenager now a days. Frank Sinatra is their Drake and Andrea Bocelli is their Justin Bieber. My grandpa can quote every song by the both of them word for word without a misstep. Other than those two, Dean Martin was just as great with his famous song "Amore." If someone sings to you, "when the moon hits your eye like a _____" you better know that the answer is "a big pizza pie" because that's amore.
10. Names
Every male on my mom's side of the family has about five names between them. Tony, Vinny, Ralph, Joseph (Guiseppe), and Frank. It's an Italian thing to name your kids after someone else in the family but when the whole family has the same name, it starts to get confusing. My grandpa's name is Joseph and that's his nephew, uncle, and brother-in-law's name as well (probably others too). It's very confusing having so many people (Italians have like 200 relatives from one side) and all of them having the same five or so names.
11. Guilty of Talking with Hands
I am the first to admit that I talk with my hands very frequently. I am notorious for knocking things over because I'm trying to explain a story and my hands start flying everywhere. My family finally learned the wine cannot be near me after a few too many ruined table cloths. I have been told that if I tied my hands behind my back I wouldn't be able to talk. Those people are not wrong, but still, rude.
12. Seeing These Things Everywhere
My garage had a wall dedicated to these jugs because my dad always made his own wine. Growing up, I used to watch my dad make wine every Sunday in the Fall and he was always so proud to show it off to the family. Every Italian male must try to make their own wine at least once in their life, it's like a right of passage.
13. Last Names
Every Italian knows that their last name is difficult to pronounce, but this is the one time where really, you just have to sound it out (not like calamari). I have been called Raquel Rigatoni for as long as I can remember and people think they're so clever every time they say it as if I hadn't heard it for the past 19 years. "If you put chicken in front of any Italian person's last name it sounds like a delicious meal" is probably the funniest thing I've ever heard and unfortunately, it's somewhat true.
14. "Jersey Shore"
This show, without a doubt, gives both Jersey and Italians a crappy reputation. We would rather be associated with the mafia than be associated with this show. Watching these people attempt to cook "Sunday dinner" was a joke and the best part was, most of them weren't even from Jersey. The fact that people from around the US genuinely thought that this show was a representation of us is really sad.
15. I'M NOT YELLING.
When friends come over to my house and they meet my family for the first time they can't even fathom that this is how we actually talk. I could honestly never be friends with an only child because they would be shell-shocked, at least friends with siblings have a little noise in their houses. My uncle literally screams when he's talking to the point where you don't know if he's mad, happy, or sad. If you ever meet a quiet Italian, there has to be a major problem.
16. Marriage
"Betty's grandson is around your age" (he's actually 28 but who's counting?), "I can't die until you have grandchildren," "why aren't you married yet?" These are things I constantly hear from my grandma. Cooking for us isn't enough, she needs to be a matchmaker too. I'm 19 years old and she's annoyed that I haven't been dating someone since I was 14 and on the road to marriage. She literally tells me I have until the end of college to get a ring. She isn't kidding either! I'm sure many can relate to the constant marriage/baby questions and you're like I'm a child myself, I can't have my own.
17. Tanning
It's the heart of the summer and you're down the shore with your friends when all of a sudden your friends start taking out their 30 or 50 SPF sun tan lotion. I mean personally I put a little on my face for precaution but I use oil on my body. Friends never seem to understand how you don't even try to tan but after an hour, you're 5 shades darker. Especially since my dad's side of the family is from Sicily, I have an instant tan. Italian skin goes from pale to bronze in a matter of minutes.
18. Malocchio
If you ever see an Italian use this hand gesture, that means they feel the malocchio's presence. For non-Italian people, the malocchio translates to the evil eye; it's very similar to karma. We believe that if someone looks at you the wrong way or says something about a family member, if we do this hand gesture right away, it will ward off the malocchio. We also wear red when we are around people we fear will try to spread it because red wards off this evil eye as well.
All in all, Italians are crazy, superstitious, loud people but we have strong values and a sense of family that I know that any Italian wouldn't trade for anything in the world.
