Being Italian.

Why do Italians hate Jehovah's Witnesses?
> Because Italians hate all witnesses.
>
> Do you know why most men from Italy are named Tony?
> On the boat over to America they put a sticker on them
> that said "TO NY"
>
> You know you're Italian when:
You can bench press 325 pounds, shave twice a day and still cry when your mother yells at you.
>
> You carry your lunch in a produce bag because you can't fit
> two cappicola sandwiches, 4 oranges, 2 bananas and pizzelles
> into a regular lunch bag.
>
> Your mechanic, plumber, electrician, accountant, travel agent and lawyer are all your cousins.
>
> You have at least 5 cousins living in the same town or
> on the same block. All five of those cousins are named
> after your grandfather or grandmother.
>
> You are on a first name basis with at least 8 banquet
> hall owners
>
> You only get one good shave from a disposable razor.
>
> If someone in your family grows beyond 5' 9", it is presumed his Mother had an affair.
>
> There were more than 28 people in your bridal party.
>
> You netted more than $50,000 on your first communion.
>
> And you REALLY, REALLY know you're Italian when:
>
> Your grandfather had a fig tree.
>
> You eat Sunday dinner at 2:00.
>
> Christmas Eve . . . only fish.
>
> Your mom's meatballs are the best.
>
> You've been hit with a wooden spoon or had a shoe thrown at you.
>
> Clear plastic covers on all the furniture.
>
> You know how to pronounce "manicotti" and "mozzarella."
>
> You fight over whether it's called "sauce" or "gravy."
>
> You've called someone a "mamaluke."
>
> And you understand "bada bing".

Not a bad list.Some of them made me laugh out loud.

Pretty funny

Good ones olivant. But you forgot one.....



"You know you're Italian when your Grandmother has a thicker mustache than you do."

European Italians = Hilarious
Guido Italians = Annoying
Elderly Guido Italians = Hilariously annoying

Take them or leave them.

You know your Italian,when your Nonna asks if your still hungry,you reply no and she replies don't be silly and proceeds to fill up your plate the same as before.

It is impossible for you to talk with your hands in your pockets.

That is 100% true.

Many I can relate to, if not for me personally for my parent's generation.


You have at least 5 cousins living in the same town or
on the same block. All five of those cousins are named after your grandfather or grandmother. (i.e. I have 3 cousins and myself, named Ann, all after the same grandmother)

You are on a first name basis with at least 8 banquet
hall owners (I didn't but my parents & in-laws did)

There were more than 28 people in your bridal party. (not 28, but my cousin had 13.)

You netted more than $50,000 on your first communion. (ok, not quite that much, but money was a "standard" gift for first communions and I did pretty well.

And you REALLY, REALLY know you're Italian when:

Your grandfather had a fig tree. (My great uncle did)

You eat Sunday dinner at 2:00. (All the time growing up, Sunday dinner was at 2:00. We even got to drink soda on Sunday)

Your mom's meatballs are the best. Absolutely

You've been hit with a wooden spoon or had a shoe thrown at you.

Clear plastic covers on all the furniture. (my mom always had the living room couch in the plastic. I hated it. We always hung out in the family room, but had to tread cautiously in the living room.

You know how to pronounce "manicotti" and "mozzarella."

You fight over whether it's called "sauce" or "gravy." (only here on the BB. Everyone I know calls it sugo)

You've called someone a "mamaluke." Ha ha....my dad would occasionally say that word and told us not to say it.

And you understand "bada bing". [/i]

TIS

My mom's sister married an Italian about 50 years ago. To look at my Aunt you would think she was Italian herself. His parents gave them their house as a wedding pressent. His parents, along with 4 or 5 other relatives all had houses on that block. My cousin would think it odd I wasn't related to most of the people on her block since she was. Little by little after they all died the houses were sold. I think my cousin lives in one of those houses. But I think it's just my cousin and Aunt that lives there now.

It's strange because this is a little street, with maybe 20 houses total on it. You go around the block and it's as if you entered a new universe.

Beth, it was a very common practice for Italian families, well probably common for all families regardless of their ethinic backgounds for that matter, to own, share, and rent homes on the same block. And it wasn't uncommon for close friends of those families to join them on the same block when they migrated to this country.

I can assure all that Italians aren't the only ones who have clear plastic covers on all the furniture (actually yellow plastic covers that were once clear).

My dad had a fig tree that he would bury each winter.

Yeah, sunday dinner was right after church and MY mom's meatballs were the best, and the sauce too!

I never heard of sauce calld gravy until the Sopranos.

I still have wooden spoon impressions on my back from where my mom whacked me.

And my dad called me a mamaluke more than a few times.

And how about "you wanna bacala?"

And it is NOT man-i-coat.

I still can't get use to how Ricotta is pronounced. It was always with a rolled "r" and the double t with a "tha" sound (ri-coth-tha). However if I am in a store I have to ask for the ricodda so they know what I'm talking about. My parents would say its the "Americani pronounciation".


TIS

My daughter's grandmother is Italian, and I used to get on her for pronouncing mozzarella "mahz-er-elle". I always told her there's an "a" at the end. I could never convince her though.

That's funny. My daughter's grandmother is Italian, too.

Manicotti = MON -I -GOTH

When I was dating my wife (Italian) I would eat my meager German, Polish, Irish dinner at 5:00 pm and then go to my girlfriends house (wife) and be "forced" to eat another dinner. ..... and I loved it!

Speaking of huge dinners... holidays at my grandmother's we'd have the posta, meatballs, sausage, eggplant, fresh Italian bread, etc. The works!!! Well, my mother would of course volunteer my sister and I to clean up the table only to make room for the breaded chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, corn etc. That's two complete meals in one sitting. This is not including the dozen or so desserts that everyone would bring.

It took my dad (her son) and uncle to finally convince her it was way too much, not only work, but food, and convinced her to have one main course. She was always worried that there wouldn't be enough, which would be the ultimate embarrassment for any Italian family. (Like anyone was gonna starve)

TIS

When I was a kid, a traditional Sunday went like this :

Woke up to the smell of meats in the gravy. Went to church. In the winter after playing football, or in the summer after playing baseball, we'd get back home around 11:30 - Noonish and sneak a meatball out of the pot, rip a piece of Italian bread off the loaf, sit down to watch Abbott and Costello and have a meatball sandwich.

1:00 PM either the Mets or the Giants would start and we'd watch the game.


2:00 PM Macaroni and Meats in the Gravy came out and we'd sit down for Sunday dinner.

5:00 - 5:30 PM Grandma would make the "Black Coffee" for grandpa and the men.

At 6:00 grandma would take out the Pokeno game or the deck of cards, and the penny card games would begin. The men would fall alseep on the couch watching either the second game of football in the winter or out in the yard after drinking some wine outside in the summer.

Then around 7:00 we'd either make cold cut sandwiches or sometimes order Spumoni Gardens Pizza.

TIS, my brother is still pissed off that I stopped making lasagna on Thanksgiving!!

That is ALOT of food. There was no worrying about the waistline then.

If your grandmother ever saw a skinny girl she'd probably want to adopt her just to feed her.

We would go to 11:00 mass, get home and I would spread the sunday paper out on the dining room table. I'd start reading it cover to cover including the supplements. I'd never finish before I heard "Set the table." Then we'd eat. Almost always Italian or pot roast with potatos and carrots and, yes, mashed potatos with gravy.

After that I'd finish reading the paper, take out the garbage, do my homework, go play 'till the streetlights came on. Then, watch Ed Sullivan. I'd try to stay up to watch Perry Mason, but most times my mother would hear its theme and yell from another room, "Joe, go to bed."

If there is a God, I have one wish: return me to just one Sunday back then.

I can certainly relate to the list and everyone's experiences , especially Signor Cardi's

As for sauce vs. gravy. I've heard this stupid argument my whole life, and I'll say this: I've heard them both, so I guess it depends upon where you grew up. In the New York City area, you probably heard "gravy" more often. I know I did, and I grew up on 187th Street, in the heart of the Belmont section of the Bronx.

We always called it gravy. To differentiate it from what you might put on roast beef, that was called "brown gravy".

On Sundays we always went to early mass, since you couldn't receive Communion if you ate after midnight. We'd be starving by the time Mass was over. Walking home from church, we would stop at the local bakery to buy danishes and pastries for breakfast, as well as fresh bread for the afternoon dinner of macaroni (and when did we start calling it pasta?).

Sometimes, I would sleep at my grandmother's on Saturday night and on Sunday morning I would help her make homemade ravioli. My job would be to pinch the edges together with a fork and then poke holes in the middle.

As I've said before...it's quite simple.

When you make a Marinara Sauce, it's called SAUCE.

Once you add Meatballs, Sausage, and / or Bracciole, it becomes a GRAVY.

Marinara Sauce

Meats in the Gravy

When I was growing up we couldn't eat after midnight Saturday until after Communion on Sunday. I'd go to the 8 o'clock Mass with my grandmother at Our Lady Of Mount Carmel on 187th Street, because the 8 o'clock was in Italian. Then, if my father and mother weren't up to it, I had to take my brother to the 11 o'clock in English! My reward was a fried meatball, before it went in the GRAVY, in between Masses.

I bet you did

My wife's Italian family always refers to it as macaroni. They never say pasta. They own a restaurant and the menu refers to pasta because of the familiarity of the term.

Growing up, I always had Sunday dinner with my family and grandparents around two o'clock unless it was football season and dinner was planned around the Steelers game. In the summer we would usually cook out or head to the lake.

Really, I never heard sauce referred to as gravy. I asked my sister and she never heard it either. It's offensive to my ears. Uggh! Why gravy? It's Sauce. Sauce makes sense. I never heard of spaghetti gravy. It's spaghetti sauce.

Klydon: Go Steelers. Superbowl next season!

It is spaghetti sauce.

But ask your sister what she calls it if she adds meatballs and/ or sausages to it.

It not called meats in the sauce!

Oh boy PB. You sure we didn't grow up in the same house? My mom always saved me a fried meatball before it went into the gravy. I'd eat it when I got home, and then as I said in my other post, I'd sneak another one out of the gravy.

How many times, when you were a kid, did your mother send you to buy italian bread, and by the time your reached your house you already ate a 1/4 of it?

Hey, I was trying to be nice. Among New York Italians, it's called gravy.

Help me out here, Cardi.

Well, considering that Addeo was on my way home from Church, a lot!

Yup, a fried meatbal sprinkled with a little grated cheese, tucked into the business end of a nice Bastone. Minchia!

My mother always had to tell my brother to buy two loaves of bread - one for dinner and one for him to eat on the walk home from the bakery!!

And here's a "gravy" endorsement from your fellow NYer.

I've never heard spaghetti sauce referred to as gravy once the meat is added. This is new to me. I'll have to ask my wife or brother-in-law if they knew about this.

I've heard it called gravy, and I assume it is derived from meat sauce in Italy being called Ragu, which is the equivalent of "gravy"instead of tomato sauce.

Sauce is red, Gravy is brown. Sauce is derived from tomatoes, gravy is derived from animals; beef, chicken, pork.

By DC's logic, Brown Gravy without meat would be called sauce....yes?

Gravy can be white, brown, gray, reddish....it depends.

It's called thick juice..in my family.

I don't know if I'd be eating anything with gray gravy on it.

No.

But tell me my friend, what do you call it when you put meatballs, sausage and braciole in red tomato sauce?

I had it in elementary school with mystery meat.

Biscuits and gravy?

Biscuits and gravy YUMMY!!!!

Sunday Gravy - a variety of meat which usually includes meatballs, braciole, sausage, and pork bones.

I want braciole now. Hope you're happy.

God, I'm getting agita reading G-r-a-v-y. Stop it! It's sauce.

Is Gravy not a well used term then in the U.S then?

My family always called it gravy, as did the family of Pizzaboy and Don Cardi. TIS and Olivant have always called it sauce.

Obviously it IS gravy, depending on where you come from. And Olivant, if something as simple as the word gravy gives you agita, you need to take up yoga or meditation.

Thanks for clearing that up SB, i always assumed everyone called it Gravy in the U.S because of the sopranos

It's juice!!!!!

Repeatedly posting the words agita and madonne doesn't make you any more Italian than anyone else on these boards. You're from Texas, by way of Backwoods, Pennsylvania, you couldn't possibly understand, nor do we expect you to.

Babe's right, take up yoga.

As I've said before...it's quite simple.

When you make a Marinara Sauce, or a spaghetti sauce, a bolognese sauce, a mushroom sauce, a puttanesca sauce, it's called SAUCE.

Once you add Meatballs, Sausage, and / or Bracciole, it becomes a GRAVY.

Marinara, Bolognese, Puttanesca Sauce.

Meats in the Gravy


And if you don't know how to make your meats in the GRAVY, THEN you can get agita!

Interesting article on the subject.

Sauce Or Gravy

A thick liquid??

I just read that myself and was about to post it.

Even Uncle Junior calls it SUNDAY GRAVY

Sorry olivant.

You're thinking of Franco American Spaghetti-o's sauce.

You are dude not me

Not this Italian!

Not this Honorary Italian!

DC, My wife confirms that her family and the Italians of her hometown of Pittston, PA (the Tomato Capital of the USA) always referred to the sauce as gravy. I woke her up to ask her this, so I received no further details.

I've known her and her family since 1985, and eaten many pasta (oops, I mean macaroni) dinners there, but I've never heard them say gravy, but she says it was commonly called gravy, so I believe it.

It still seems odd to me as gravy is what I put on mashed potatoes and turkey. But I learn something every day.

I'm with you Kly. I never knew it as gravy either. Maybe it depends on where you were born/raised or ancestors. Maybe it's "gravy" in the East and "sauce' in the Midwest. I don't know. To me, gravy is what you put on your mashed potatos and roast.
Oh well, I'll eat it no matter what you wanna call it.


TIS

And that's all that matters to me to TIS.

Anyone here from Venice,or have relatives from Venice???

I've never heard "gravy" either - and my grandparents were from Sicily and Calabria. But I have no problem with the term referring to meat added to sauce I suppose..

"Gravy" to me means the typical brown gravy, or, turkey gravy.

Otherwise it's spaghetti sauce

The reference to gravy is a New York Italian thing.

I first discovered this when I was a young kid. I was invited to eat dinner at an Italian friend's house and his mom served us spaghetti with sauce. It was obviously homemade and probably the best sauce I ever ate. After having a third helping (which pleased her immensely) she asked me how I liked her gravy. I was a little confused and told her it was delicious but that it tasted like sauce. She said something in Italian indicating I wasn't too bright but laughed hysterically and explained to me that it was called "gravy".

That's funny. This is one picture I won't get out of my head.

That somewhat reminds me of an old co-worker. For our Christmas lunch we all went to a restaurant, and this girl ordered filet mignon. This was her first time eating it. We asked how she like it, and she said it was good, that it kind of tasted like steak.

There you go -- a "New York Italian" thing... not an Italian thing. Same as the NY/NJ mispronunciation of most Italian pasta names/dishes

mani-got ...Huh? Say THAT in Italy!

How do you pronounce it??

Like they do in Italy... mahn-ee-'cot-ee

All vowels are pronounced in (proper) Italian.

Does anyone say "spaghett" instead of spaghetti? Or "zeet" for ziti? Why's manicotti different?

Because its a local slang. You say that in New York and you'll get laughed back across the river.

Try ordering cappy-cola too.

You mean Gabby-gol? Order that in Italy!

How do you say spaghettios in Italy?

...but I do hear what you're saying, and I DO use the local vernacular when I need to

I'm not in Italy, I'm in New York.

Spaghetti-O-No's!

...but you wanna sound Italian using pseudo-Italian-American-but-not-real-Italian? (who doesn't! )

But it ain't pseudo here in New York.

Don't know if this is exclusive only to Italians, but a couple more observations:

I've noticed that Italians can be quite loud when in a group. Why my mother's natural speaking voice is kind of loud. Someone could think she was mad.

On Sundays we always had to get dressed up. We'd stay in our "church" clothes all day. I remember playing outside all dressed up.

On a different note, it "was" tradition for the oldtimers anyway, for the woman to wear black when her husband passes away. My grandmother lost her husband when he was 52. She died at 90 and wore black her entire life after his death (approx 30 some years.


TIS

...nor Jersey.

I don't care, but I get a few giggles out of it

A don doesn't giggle.

TIS! You're up early! And I'm about ready for bed!

Talking loud might just come from being in a large family. You have to talk loud to be heard. I've been told to tone it down a bit. It doesnt' help that I'm half deaf.

I've heard about women wearing black when in mourning, but only for a year, not their whole life.

I am up early. It's 5:31 a.m. here. I usually get up at 5:15, but simply couldn't sleep and was up at 4:00.

TIS

I get up at 4:00. The roosters tell me to go back to bed.

It's not pronounced like Mrs. Manicotti in the Honeymooners!

It's pronounced : mOn - e - gOth


In Italy, except for the O, the other vowels are sounded out differently than in America.

The O is still sounded out as a long O just like in the english language.

The E is sounded out as a a short E ( like in the word wEt)

So in Italy you would say, (just like here in east Geoff )

mO-Ne-gOth

To be honest, I was actually awake at 2:00 but made myself stay in bed. At least 4:00 it seems the next day I guess. I hate it when I can't sleep.

TIS

There were lots of older women (OK, maybe I just thought that they were old because I was like 9) in my neighborhood that would sit outside all day (the stoop-sitters), dressed head-to-toe in black because they were in "mourning", sometimes for decades. They would also watch the neighborhood and would tell on you to your parents if you did something that met with their disapproval.

Well, that's what they did when they weren't making GRAVY!!

Goth?

See, Staten Island isn't really part of New York....

As Pat Cooper said : "All dressed in black with A gold tooth here, a knitting needle there......."




My grandfather ( mother's father ) died when I was 4 years old.

My grandmother ( mother's mother ) died when I was 17 years old.

She wore black everyday for 13 years! Madone! Talk about being old fashioned and from "the other side!"

My cousins in Sicily still do that. They were rather shocked that my mother wasn't still wearing black when they saw her 6 years after my dad died.

...but I bet (at least) they knew how to pronounce manicotti!

Well, it's not a Sicilian dish, so I don't think they pronounce it at all!

BANG!

Not to be too picky, but that pronounciation is a SOuthern Italian dialect, probably Sicilian. In Florence, where they claim they speak the only "real" Italian, you would call it
Mahn eeeee cott eeee.

And what do those northern Italians know?

Actually they are probably right because Southern Italy has been conquered and ruled by so many different ethnic backgrounds throughout history that the real Italian language probably got altered somewhat over time.

If you're older than 21 and your mother still makes you pastina with butter when you're sick, you might be Italian.

Sounds like a all together different dish

You might also be pushing the envelope on living at home too long.

NORTHERN ITALIAN / SOUTHERN ITALIAN
prosciutto / pro joot
fagioli / fazool
capicola / gapee gol
caprese / gabrayz

I still LOVE pastina with butter when I'm sick.

Where I grew up it was common and a subject of good natured kidding in the Italian families, of which there were many, that the sons were pampered while the girls did much of the work. That was the case in my wife's family where as a teenager and young adult, she, her sister and parents worked very hard in the family enterprise while her brother stayed home and watched TV. He's closing in on 40 now and pretty much runs the business. He has a girlfriend, but still lives in his mother's basement where he continues to be pampered.

My mother-in-law takes out the garbage, and when I asked why her son didn't do it, she answered that she never told him what day the trash collection was.

I don't know if this trait is familiar. I'm sure it exists in other groups too.

[quote=klydon1

My mother-in-law takes out the garbage, and when I asked why her son didn't do it, she answered that she never told him what day the trash collection was.

I don't know if this trait is familiar. I'm sure it exists in other groups too. [/quote]

This is pretty much widespread throughout the Mediterranean. Men do no cooking, cleaning, etc., and the women do all the "menial work." My own mohter who is half Spanish is apalled that I will make my own coffee, empty the garbage, pitch in with the dishes, etc. because she thinks men should not do women's work. It is slowly changing everywhere (except perhaps among the Arabs).

Oh, yeah, cuz that's soooo uncommon with Italian-American men.

A good movie to watch is Marty with a young Ernest Borgnine. The movie is from the 50s, and the scenes with his mother and brother-in-law are very good. I really enjoyed this movie.

"So wadda ya wanna do tonight Marty?"

Excellent movie!

"You don't like her. My mother don't like her. She's a dog. And I'm a fat, ugly man. Well, all I know is I had a good time last night. If we have enough good times together, I'm gonna get down on my knees. I'm gonna get that girl to marry me. If we make a party on New Year's, I got a date for that party. You don't like her? That's too bad."

Second and third generation Italians most certainly don't pronounce Italian words the same as the first generation does or as Italians in the old country. My dad used to laugh at my pronounciation of the little Italian I could speak. But I grew up in a mixed Italian neighborhood, so I had exposure to many dialects and pronounciations. Some of you may have had the same experience. Also, I was learning from many people who spoke broken english. One of the things I noticed though was that one might have a lazy mouth and not pronounce the last vowel or consonants of a word like mozarella. I still don't pronounce the "la" on the end of it. But when I was learning it, my ears didn't pick up on those last two characters.

I've been reading everyones replies to this topic and have found so many things in the responses I can relate to.
Both my parents & grandparents were born in Floridia,which is a town in the Sicilian Province of Syracusa,Italy. First my grandfather came to America,then my grandmother. My grandmother owned a rooming house & my grandfather was a bootlegger.Then my mother ran the rooming house & my father worked delivering furnature for G Fox & Company and made homemade wine.
I was pretty much born speaking Italian(Sicilian) because my grandmother did not speak a word of English.In those days people would visit each other & always get together with freinds.
How things have changed.
My parents are gone now and all I think is how my kids will never speak fluent Italian and nowadays people have to find time to visit with freinds and don't even know or speak to their neighbors.
How things have changed.

Sicilian 1,

Things have changed. I too grew up in the true "Italian" (well, Sicilian)atmosphere, with foods, customs, traditions. All my grandparents and my father were born in Sicily (Trapani). I have such wonderful memories of the family sitting at the table, eating good food; my grandmother who only spoke Italian (but she did try to throw English in the mix) talking to me and me trying my hand at Italian (not doing so well), but hey, we connected. I remember so well grandma bringing out her piles of Christmas gifts, how her food tasted just a tad better than the rest and simply how culture was a big part of or lives.

My children will not know what I have experienced. I guess that's a part of life going on, but I sure wish I would have appreciated some of these things more as they were happening. I guess that's part of life too, living, learning and cherishing memories.

TIS