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ViritLrs' StH
_ y 21
Mari Ti a
lActaL,;
ITALIA* IUD
The woman was sitting at the kitehin table feeding small pieoes of
nest, onion, garlic and spinash to a food grinder. She was well over
fifty. As she spoke and worked, her long gold earrings bobbed and swung.
ulta getting a dinner ready for a party of twelve people. All fro*
Montpelier. Bet Italians. Italians knew haw to make their own Italian
dinners. These are Anerisans. In the winter I get about two orders a
week for eed..sised dinner parties. In the summer, net ea many. They
like to get out then in their oars and stop at different places to sate
She had finished grinding the food. It was a soft brown-greea mass.
This she seasoned with salts pepper and crushed Want leaves.
*This is the filling for the ravioli," she said. *Algiers they went
ravioli for their dinners, and so ne went spaghetti at the same meal. Me,
I think it is foolish to have both at the sane dinner. They're almost
the same except that the ravioli are stuffed. But if that's what they
want-- me, I don't ear.. It means more money for
She cleared the table and tacked heavy whits oilcloth over it. She
rolled to a very thin sheet a rather stiff pastry node of eggs, flour and
mashed boiled potatoes.
*I been (icing this kind of work for ten years or so. Since my
husband died. Quite a few women in Barre earn money this way.
*It's a funny thing In Italy I was always tee busy to think nuoh
of food. I lived in the Lake Gone district up north. Our house was an a
hill eutside the city. By two sisters amine would go to the city every
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day to work in the mills. Silk mills. *e were so hungry at noon we were
satisfied with any kind of food. We carried our lunch with us. Polenta
and cheese tasted as !pod to us then as chicken does today. We liked good
food, but we were always too busy and didn't have enough money to eat
only the simple food. Over here it seems funny to be cooking meals for
people who got no more money than me. It's in the last ten years that
American people have been asking for Italian food."
The woman had finished rolling the pastry to a thin sheet. how she
cut it in diamond shapes about an inch wide.
"Many Italian women have machines to make these ravielis" she said.
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"I haven't got one. They're quite expensive am anyway, I'd rather make
them by hard."
On each diamond of paAry she placed a teaspoonful of the ground food.
She flaTped the end of the pastry over this and pressed it to the lower
half with a fork. The finished ravioli were V shaped like the flaps of
envelopes. "They look better when they're made by machine," she said.
"'6ut they taste the same.
"be always made them this way in the old country, we never had any
machines to help us. Our fingers were the machines. 1 never saw the
machines until I came to this country. I ORAO over when I was eighteen
years old. I wasn't married then. I came over here to marry iletro
Bartoletti. I grew up with Pietro. I went to school with him. were
always good friends in the old country. he cams over here to work in the
sheds. kvery mnnth I Fot a letter from him. he told me how good the
granite business was. he asked me to marry him, so I wrote back 221. I
oaLa over here in Au at. I liked Barre. It didn't seem strange to me.
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We were married right away. And right away a great many people came to
visit me. Italian people. hot many I knew, But all Italian people from
the north of Italy who spoke my Italian and lived the way I lived. I had
no time to be lonesome.
"My Pietro, he worked in the sheds for fifteen years. Always he was
not satisfied. Always he said some day he would find other work. hut no
other work he found, he stayed in the sheds until he died. he caught a bad
cold one winter. The doctors, they all said his lungs were already weak.
1,9 oruldn't stand the added sickness. Be died."
The woman set down the rolling in. he folded her arms and si4hed.
"Well, I was with four children, all young enough to be in school, so I
said to myselfs you got to earn some money, melicendes You got to earn a
little money to add to the insurance money Pietro left. So I started to
cook meals for these American people. They lik- Italian too e and they
pay rood money for it, It was work I could do at home, so I tried to Tet
is many orders as I could.
"One Italian woman, a friend of mine, does the Italian cooking for one
of the restaurants; but me, I don't want to bother with that. I t eneteTh
to do. I got one girl in her last year at h h school. I „-ot to keep the
house for her.
"Ihe other three children are married. The boy is in the printinr,
business in Boston, and the two rirls both live outside the State. They
were both married before they were out of hih school three years. Pla
glad for them. They y'ot nice homes and they are ha:Ty. I'm happy they
didn't marry strneoutters. Always with them it is worry, worry. Worry
about their health; and worry about haw many days a week they work. No
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matter haw good looking a man is or how good he is, I never would say to a
girli marry him this stonecutter. No, less tLan twenty years I had with my
Pietro. That is too little.
"The 4irls, they didn't like it when I started to get meals for Americans.
They said, 'You are as 400d as they are, ethydo you get dinfers for them?'
They didn't understand much about money then. They didn't know that you
have to work to make a living. They learned soon, soon. Ihey worked three
years after they were out of hitt school, they learned it took money to
live. Libera, the younTost eirl, doesn't mind. Some times she helps me
wait on table. She even helps me !:,et the meals. It's different nowl People
don't look deign so mueh on how you earn your money. It's a good thing.
Lverybody's got to live one way or another.
"After Pietro died I had to figure a way to live. I said to myealfs
I have the house small as it is, it's nine and all paid for. 1 have a
little insurance money. But there are fovr children. I got to make that
money stret01. So I began taking orders for dinners. And sometimes if
the nothbors were sick nut net sick encugh for real nurses- I took
care of them. They likee semerne who spoke their own tongue. 1 don't do
much nursing new. It's different. kany Barre born Italian girls have
graduated from or hospital. They know twenty times more about nursing
than I do, and they speak Italian well enough to understand the patient.
"I like to work like this-- here in the house. I know where every
pan is hung, where every spice is kept. Sometimes my customers want me to
cook in their own homes. bell, I do not refuel., but I charge them more."
She had finished euttin4 an pressing toetV.er the last of the ravioli.
Sho sprinkled them lightly with white cornmeal and placed them on a long
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board to harden.
The kitchen was small. ix plain, sturdy chairs and a heavy round
table almost filled the ror'sa. A coal fire burned in the stove. beside
the pantry door was a doorstep of granite a polished gray hall of granite.
The woman said"My husband made that doorstep. I got two more up-
stairs. One I gave to my daughter in Massachusetts. -Pietro used to take home
odd pieces of granite that I could use around the house. I still have some
thin, flat pieces -just grout.. that I use in the fall when I make pickles.
I put them on the cucumbers to hold them down in the brine. Once he made
me a knob of granite, s little biuer than this-" the woman held up a
clenched fist, "ha made it smooth and put a handle on it. I used it to
pound steak. One day the youngest boy took it out in the yard to hewer a
nail in his cart* It split. I haven't got another one. I miss it.
"You want to see where my customers eat?" the woman asked. "Aight in
here."
The dining roe -Awes but little lareer than the kitchen, lhe walls were
covered with a golden brown paper almost the same shade us the oval table of
oak. Afternoon sunlight spilled through the two windows, giving warmth to
the bareness. The room was scrupulously clean.
Melioenda said, "I don't bother to fix the table pretty. I figure
my customers come here to eats not to look at my table. 01, I fix the food
fancy so it will lock good to the eyes, too. And I give them plenty* That's
what they pay for.
"I charge them 61.26 each. That isn't too much. rirst I serve them a
big platter of stuffed celery, thin slices of salami and mortadella., ripe
olives, and pickles. Then the ravioli with rich tomato sauce. if they
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asset spaghetti, too," the woman shrugged resi,-ned shoulders, "tell, I
give them the spaghetti as well. The little Italian rolls are ;'cod with
ravioli. I don't make them myself. I buy them from te Italian baker down
the street. Just before it's time to serve the diner, 1 sprinkle them
with milk ant: put them in the oven for a few minutes to heat them. Lessert,
no. I never serve dessert. The ravioli are so rich that I make them a dish
that will out the richness.
I give them a salad of lettuce, endive, tomato,
onion, celery, mixed with vinegar and olve oil. I use the wine vinegar.
It gives a better taste to the salad. With the dollar and a quarter dinner
I serve just one glass of red wine. If they want more they rot to pay for
it.
"ionip.,ht my custooers wifl et here at seven o'clock. They won't leave
until eleven. I know. They have been here before. It Is a crowd of young
people who work in offices in Mfintpelier. They will drink about five 'dollars
worth of wine before they eel home. Ser.:atlases one or two of them bring a
pint of their or weiekey. 'hey want to drink it here. Well, I don't
refuse. Out it's not so simeh profit for ms when they don't buy my wine.
"You know what hal4ened to a frienc of mine last sueeert She is a
woman 'Wage, and she earns a living gettiez direers like I de. She eot
dinner ft!' sixteen people. A fried chicken cAnver she charges 4 1.b0 for..
Well, not one of those sixteen people bought wine. Not one glass. lihey
drank whiskey they had broueht with them. about half -past ten policemen,
ooze in the housethree of them, to raid it. Well, they go down cellar
and they find the SKEW kind of whiskey that is on the table. Ibey wart to
arrest the woman. She says no, that she hasn't sold any. her customers, they
all say no, too. Well, the police can't prove that she sold it. Ihey don't
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do anything to her. nut after that they watch her close. She doesn't do
=oh business now. She's aftaid to sell wine.
lWhy don't the police leave us alone? We rot to aare a living. We
hurt no one. I know it's a;rairst the law, but just the same it's an
honest way to live. There are worse ways of makinl. a livinis and the law
says nothing about it. 1 never been raided. lewbe 0040 day I will. inen
I will lose oustoners. I will have to be extra careful about the people I
sell nine to."
ielioenda smiled. "%1,311, any tine you want a good Italian feed, call
me up. Uy name is in th,F, tosierh(7ne bolc. Just oall eliconda hartoletti."