I get the impression from another thread that many Italians here don't consider themselves Italians. Well of course I'm American but have great pride in my Italian roots and my heritage and will always be of Italian descent. AND proud of it!!

Anyway, not sure if this was posted earlier or not but it's sure fun to watch. I can relate to nearly all of it. Have fun.

SB, I am sure you'll relate to many of these.


TIS


[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rYg5Gg4FOo[/video]

You know you're Italian if you are quite patient and willing to wait to get your revenge.

You know you're Italian if you call tomato sauce "gravy."

You know you're Italian when you have to warn your non-Italian friends that your family is not yelling, that's just talking

You call sausage "sauseech", mozzarella "moo sah rel" and a sandwich a "sangwich"

Plastic slipcovers on your grandmother's couch for thirty years, drinking wine out of old jelly jars, a picture of the Pope in between pictures of Sinatra and The Virgin Mary---in the kitchen, at least one uncle who never got married and lived at home until he inherited the house, then turned around and sold it to pay gambling debts, and at least one aunt who never wore anything but a muumuu. But you know me, I don't like to stereotype .

However, being a proud Italian-American myself, I admit that sometimes the stereotypes are true. EVERY stereotype has at least a little truth to it, no matter who you are or where you come from. Sorry, liberals .

We used to go nuts when Ma cut her home made bread. Big knife move towards her as she cut the bread.

No place to put the home made ravioli so she laid them out on the bed. Put a cover over them.

New Year's Eve at home as kids. Our noise makers were hitting pots with spoons.

We had it in for a tenant in the building. Put horse shit in a paper back. Then light a cheery bomb put on the back out side his door then knock on his door and run.

After New Years throw the Christmas tree out the window to get it out of the house. We set fire to it first.

You know TB, I never heard it called that until the Sopranos. Maybe it has something to do with our being Napolitan.

You know TB, I never heard it called that until the Sopranos. Maybe it has something to do with our being Napolitan. [/quote

Oli, I hadn't ever heard before either. I think it possibly is a NY or EastCoast thing. My family ALWAYS called it sugu.

Can't remember exact quote from clip, but "No matter what illness, virus, disorder, etc it's ALWAYS cause you didn't eat. LOL I so can relate. Every single time any of us said we didn't feel well, my mom would ask "Did you eat?{"

Tho this tradition was before my time, I do remember my parents saying that wakes were held in the home.

Lunches: I remember bringing eggplant sandwich or such to school, and tho I would have friends ask with a puzzled look,"what's that", I really enjoyed the food and didn't care that what they thought. Beat their PBJ sandwich. ha ha

TIS

It's a New York/New Jersey/Connecticut thing, Oli. And one of the dumbest arguments in the history of the world. I love it when someone says, "No REAL Italian calls it gravy." Meanwhile, the moron saying it was born in White Plains. See the irony?

We always called it gravy if it had meat in it, sauce if it was just a basic marinara (garlic, olive oil, tomatoes and spices). And another thing, calling pasta macaroni was completely acceptable if not the norm when I was a kid. It's these idiot "foodies" who think they know everything about everything because they watch Mario Batali every day who start these silly arguments.

Oh, as an aside: Mario Batali, who would have you believe that he invented all things Italian, is of only half-Italian descent. His Mother is French Canadian, and his great, great grandparents on his father's side arrived here in the 1880's. Which makes him something like fourth generation Italian-American on one side of his family. Plus, he grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Point being, Batali has as much to do with the New York City "Italian-American Experience" as Osama bin Laden had to do with a Seder table.

Talented guy, no doubt about that. But if it wasn't for a chance encounter with the Bastianich family, he'd still be working the saute station in a forty seat restaurant downtown. Either that or he'd be back in Seattle smoking pot 24/7.

Btw, the plastic over the furniture. OMG, my mom. Our living room could only be used when we had company AND it would take an act of Congress (mom) to God forbid eat in the living room.

I am sure I'm not the only Italian who grew up with the basement fixed up like another house, with kitchen, family room, bathroom, bedroom, etc.


TIS

This may be the best thread ever...

Your freezer is loaded with trays of frozen Lasagna, baked ziti and Mainicotti in case friends dropped in and needed to be fed a meal.

Grandma would make Pizza Gain' and Gazadeel (Casatella) for Easter.

You've been drinking wine since you've been 3 years old. When you were teething as a baby they put scotch or whiskey on your gums to numb the pain.

You had five Uncle Joes, a cousin Big Joe, Little Joe, Little Little Joey, Baby Joey, Jo Jo, and a few Aunt Jo's. One of your cousins was named Joe but your Uncle was smart, he called him Duke.

Lol TIS and Beanshooter

Pizza it was always gravy and macaroni for us too.

And there was always plastic on the furniture even the lampshades

When we moved into our first house we had plastic covers on the living room set. Had Icelandic sheep skin rug on the living room floor. On top of it was a glass iron coffee table a bar on one side of the room and a red ceiling

In the basement we had a full bar like in a regular bar, poker table, juke box, pool table, and a safe under the floor and a small room with a false wall. That was my man cave.

When I was a kid the pressure cooker top blew off we had Pasta Fagioli all over the kitchen ceiling.

Gravy and macaroni for us too. I still call it that

Whats your favorite macaroni? Mine was the ones that look like accordians

You eat like you're going to the chair every Sunday, go watch TV, loosen up your pants, nap for a little while on the couch and wake up to a delicious assortment of cold cuts and coffee, cookies and cake,

Probably penne (rigate) or rigatoni

Can you eat that whole wheat macaroni? I can't.

We ALWAYS had to have some kind of dessert in the house. Many times my sister and I took turns making a cake.\

Oh, and did everyone have to eat bread with each meal? My dad would always say 2 slices of bread per meal.



TIS

Fusilli. The real fusilli, the long ones. The short ones are to be called rotini, but a lot of companies box them and call them fusilli. Wrong!

And my co-favorite is rigatoni. The old fashioned wide ones wth the lines. And coincidentally, a lot of companies have the balls to box penne rigate and call them rigatoni. Wrong again!

TIS, In the late '70's my mom would visit her sister for coffee and bring an Entenmans cake. They still are delicious.

Entenmann's was good. There is this bakery in Jersey in Hackensack that makes THEE BEST crumb cake ever!!! Is it called L & B or something like that? That was always a favorite next to the Italian pastries from my Grandma's cousins place in Ridgefield, Rispoli's.

Edit: B & W Bakery in Hackensack makes the BEST crumb cake ever

We called Rigatones sewerpipes.

True. But the best "packaged cookies" are still Stella Doro. They don't make cakes, so I'm not comparing them to Entenmann's. I'm just throwing it out there. I drove a truck for them for a couple of years when I was a kid (and when I say kid, I mean like 18 and 19 years old).

I remember the Srella Doro factory of the Deegan. What great smells came out of there. I loved their Annisette cookies and breakfast treats

That's where I pulled out of, Beansie. My route was from the North Bronx to White Plains. Basically, Central Avenue all the way up to the Westchester County Center.

Some of my father's friends in the neighborhood he knew since he was a baby. All were Italian. So they grew up as if they were cousins or brothers as the families were close. Many years later one of them became the town fire chief. When my Grandpa got sick with cancer and needed to go get chemo my father's friend would send two firemen over to physically pick up my Grandpa to bring him down the stairs to the car and when he got home from chemo they'd bring him back up the stairs. Like they say, it was done out of respect.

I always love that story. Friends from cradle to grave.

Not an Italian exclusive, PB,I can assure you.
In general, treating your living room sofa as if it were a museum piece (and forbidding your kids to sit on it) was a general working-class thing, like rolling up the carpets for the summer, wrapping them in brown paper with mothballs, and storing them upright in the hallway closet.

You know you're NOT Italian when both your mom's sisters marry Italian Americans and then when they refer to 'gravy' it's actually not the kind you put on Turkey on Thanksgiving