A Tavola Bringing Back Sunday Lunch

t avola a

Bringing Back sUNday lUNCH

by Marybeth Bonfiglio

Back in the old days, our family would gather after mass and we would spend hours eating together. It was worth having to sit through a boring mass as a kid because I knew afterwards we would be able to run wild and eat the best food, including all the dolce we wanted. We typically gathered at my Nonno’s house. All his siblings lived on one end of his street, and at the other end was Our Lady of Loretto, a tiny church that my grandparents built from stone when they arrived from Italy. After Sunday mass, everyone just walked down the street, stopped quickly in their homes, changed their clothes, grabbed the food they had prepared to share, and headed to my grandfather's house. My Nonno would bring out all the bottles of homemade wine and bitters. He’d put Tony Bennet on his record player and lay out the good silverware on red and white checkered tablecloths. Fast forward a couple of decades and nobody goes to mass anymore, the elders have all passed on, and people got so busy with their nuclear family plans that Sunday lunch became extinct. Gathering together to share food and loud conversation seemed to have faded with the busy schedules of the modern world.

Sunday would come and go without a celebratory marker to remind you that a new work week was about to begin. And on top of that is the most recent global issue, the pandemic. An entire year without actually gathering together to share food can really reawaken your old memories and remind you how important reserving one day for food and togetherness is. Not being able to be close to your people brings an ache to your heart and entire body. If only we had taken advantage and eaten together more often when we had the chance! Where I live in the United States (Oregon), we still cannot gather indoors because of the pandemic. Recently my local Italian friends and family have decided that for our physical and spiritual health, we had to bring back this old tradition, and do it in alternate back yards every week. For our Sunday lunches we all make a couple of things to share that we used to eat growing up. We bring things like: fennel fritters and sausages, olives, scaccia (a delicious regional food from Ragusa, Sicily), pasta with fennel and sardines, slow-cooked meats, homemade ricotta, jams, polenta covered in bitter greens, caponata with fresh bread, tiramisu, cannoli, fresh seasonal fruit, biscotti, homemade amari, and wine. Lots of wine. We set the table outdoors, sit down, and we eat. We eat and eat. The kids run around and remember what it’s like to be well-nourished in the community. We tell stories about the Nonni and Nonne, who taught us the specific dishes we are sharing with each other, and we talk about the ingredients they used as new immigrants with little resources. We describe the regions they came from, and commiserate with each other about how badly we all want to return to Italy. We promise to keep these lunches alive. And after too much wine and food, we take turns playing the pizzica, and, as poorly as we all play it and sing it, we imagine the ancestors dancing and laughing in joy around us, they are the ones who have unknowingly brought us all together. In this way il pranzo della domenica is reborn, fulfilling our need to connect, to honor the grandmothers and aunts who worked so hard to make dishes for us to enjoy every Sunday. By doing this, it feels like we have not forgotten the truly healing rituals of our culture. Gathering together is one of the most important and nourishing things we can do to honor our elders, and who fed us until we felt like we were going to burst.