Rosa Martello
1900-1984
Born: Long Island City, New York
Died: Patchogue, Suffolk, New York, United States of America
1900-1984
Born: Long Island City, New York
Died: Patchogue, Suffolk, New York, United States of America
<p>It's already November. With another holiday season upon us, I spend a lot of time thinking about food. I pour though recipes, plan menus, list ingredients, shop, then cook and cook and cook some more. Some of the dishes are new concoctions that catch my eye as I browse the cooking sites on the internet or watch the Food Channel. Many more are family recipes; dishes that my mother adopted into our tradition, like pumpkin bread and broccoli-cheese casserole. Others have been a part of our family celebrations since long before my mother was born. Somehow, I found myself keeper of these oldest recipes-- the one who still knows how to make <em>bread balls</em>, <em>pizza fritte, struffoli, Wine Cakes </em>or savory <em>Easter Cheese Pie. </em>The one comfortable enough to attempt home made pasta, if only once a year.</p><p>When I knead dough, stir sauce or bread vegetables for frying, I am surrounded by memories of my mother's mother. <strong>Rosa Martello Scioli</strong> was the undisputed queen of the kitchen! Without the help of microwaves, frozen dinners or take out, she prepared three meals a day for a household that at one point included eight and holiday meals, sometimes for as many as 40 people. As children we were not allowed to actually help with the cooking, but we were allowed to watch, listen and chat from the kitchen table. So many of the recipes I remember today were absorbed along with the sights, smells and warmth of her kitchen as she talked her way through each dish. I remember her trying to explain how to mix the dough for a small, finger-shaped pastry our family calls <em>E Mosto c'e olio</em> (translated "Of wine with oil")<em>. </em>I would need peanut oil,<em> </em>sweet Muscatel wine and a 5lb bag of flour with about a half pound removed...</p><em><p>"But Gram-ma, how many cups is that?"</p><p>"Cups? Who uses cups? I have to make enough to give everybody a dish."</p><p>Everybody meant a huge host of Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.</p></em><em><p>"But if you don't measure, how do you know it's right?"</p><p>"By the feel, Marylou. You can tell by the feel if the mixture is right."</p></em><p>As in many second and third generation families, my Italian given name, <em>Maria Luigia</em>, was condensed into a very American <em>Marylou</em>. Though 22 years have passed since I last sat across the kitchen table from her, the sound of Gram-ma saying my name is still so vivid. She always flattened the "a" nearly into an "e" so it sounded more like "Merry Lou".</p><p>Gram-ma was a first generation American, born of Italian parents who married after immigrating to this country. <strong>Anthony Mottola</strong> and <strong>Maria Bucato</strong> probably didn't know each other in the <em>old country</em> as they came from different cities in different provinces of Italy. We do know that her mother was a widow who brought 2 children to America and into the new union, of which Rosa was second born of five, for a total of seven siblings.</p><p>For poorly educated, labor class parents, the task of providing for a family of nine in the early 1900's in NYC, must have been daunting. I remember Gram-ma saying that as a child she went to work with her brothers and sisters in a factory (shirt or box, I'm not sure which). She recalled them making their way through the snow, shivering in threadbare coats, the only hat and scarf they had between them sacrificed to the youngest brother who they pulled along on a sled. Nine years her junior, Anthony was a frail child who was often ill. He would succumb to tuberculosis before his 25th birthday.</p><p>Rosa eventually met and married my grandfather, <strong>Domenico Archangelo Scioli. </strong>It was considered by many to be an odd match. Handsome, outgoing and a bit of a <em>casanova</em>, he had many friends of both sexes. He was an accomplished musician who spent evenings out with his band at parties and social clubs. She was plain, quiet and inexperienced, a girl who had been forced to put work before social concerns. Like Rosa, he was a first generation American, raised in a traditional Italian family. But he did not follow the steps that tradition demanded when courting a potential bride. And so, to the chagrin of both their families, Rosa was already expecting their first child by the time they exchanged their vows in 1925. To make sure everyone knew her opinion of her new son-in-law, the bride's mother wore her oldest, rattiest black dress-- a garment that had long since lost it's buttons-- closed down the front with a succession of metal safety pins.</p><p>If her mother's choice of dress was meant as premonition of a disastrous marriage, it was to prove unfounded. Rosa and Dominick 's union lasted nearly 60 years. It survived the Depression, WWII, the move from a close knit Italian community in NYC to the relative isolation of the suburbs, the loss of loved ones, and the maladies of approaching old age-- all the joys and tears of a lifetime together. They raised four children: Marie, Anthony (Sonny), Judith-- my mother-- and Dominick, Jr.</p><p>As a child, I didn't realize how fortunate we were to grow up living 2 houses away from our maternal grandparents. Memories of childhood are infused with their presence. They were with us for every holiday, every birthday. They helped blow out the candles on our homemade cakes as my siblings and I sat around my mother's kitchen table in flannel footy pajamas. They praised our good report cards, played cards with us and sprayed us with the garden hose as we dashed around the front yard in our bathing suits on unbearably hot summer days. They enthusiastically received clay ashtrays and macaroni necklaces as if precious works of art. Theirs were the familiar arms that waited two doors down when we needed to run away from home. </p><p>The earliest memory I have of my grandmother is sitting in her lap as she rocked in the big chair in our living room. I was only 2 or 3 at the time but remember it a delight on many levels. As children, we were not allowed in the living room except for TV viewing between dinner and bed. But Gram-ma's lap was sanctuary. A warm, soft place removed from the rest of the world were whispering and tickling were the order of the day until I drifted off to sleep with the beat of her gentle heart beneath my ear. </p><p>She died on September 25, 1984 of a heart attack while drinking her morning cup of coffee at the kitchen table. I could not have chosen a more appropriate place for her to draw her last breath in this life before the angels took her hand to lead her on to the next. By then, I was 27 years old, a married woman with a growing family of my own. Her passing left a huge, empty space in my life-- a space that though changed by the passage of time, exists today. There are times I can still hear her voice in my ear; times I can almost see her at the corner of my eye in a one of her printed cotton house dresses protected by an apron. I remember her strong, sturdy hands working their magic in the kitchen. I remember how soft her wavy gray hair felt beneath my cheek when I crept up behind her chair to give her a hug. Always, I'll remember the pure joy of climbing into the warmth and security of Gram-ma's lap when life was simple and her kiss really could make everything right.</p>