Primi

My parents moved back to Italy when I was two, and I grew up as an Italian until we moved back to the States about six years later. When we returned, it was not easy adapting to a new school, a new culture, and a new language — but as my mother writes in her memoir, Amarcord, it was not language so much as lunch that was the problem. I could not eat the food at the school cafeteria, so my mother packed lunches for me — though my lunches hardly resembled the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches my classmates brought to school. I have fond memories of the meatballs with tomatoes and peas, the veal stew with mushrooms, and the wonderful soups that my mother would put in a Thermos for me. What I don’t have fond memories of is the teasing I endured from my classmates; it embarrassed me so much that I asked my mother to please just pack me a normal sandwich to take to school — not peanut-butter-and-jelly, though, which to this day I cannot imagine eating. My sandwiches were made of cold frittate with onions, zucchini, or (my favorite) artichokes, or with a breaded veal cutlet layered with fried eggplant and baked tomatoes. So of course the teasing continued, but I realized that I would rather endure it and eat well. Eventually my lunches were accepted, and perhaps even envied a bit.