Re: Have you ever had a real Italian antipasta

cater · ‎03-10-2010

151949 Kennywood Park. our whole childhood revolved being at the park for Polish Day. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins were always there for that day. Our church used to hire a bus to take all the church members there and your right there was a lot of cooking going on while us kids rode all the rides. But like your Mom and Dad my parents my aunts and uncles were all dancers so they all did what your Mom and Dad did they would dance the night away with the polka's etc. while us kids either watched or rode the rides. But when the band quit playing we all gathered all our stuff up and headed for the buses got on them and the whole back home for 50 miles everyone would sing songs. Oh all those great August memories. Now they are all in heaven hope fully dancing and singing.

missy1 · ‎03-10-2010

no

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

My bff all through HS was Polish and I went with her family to Polish day at Kennywood a few time. Great memories! The food was fabulous then too. One of the great things about Pittsburgh is all the many different ethnic backgrounds and - when we were kids - the ethnic neighborhoods. However, that doesn't exist very much anymore.

just bee · ‎03-10-2010

@151949

This is my favorite way to eat. Every culture has its own version of antipasto and it's a great way to be introduced to a new cuisine.

Antipasto gives you an opportunity to try new things and be creative with flavors and presentation.

We're fortunate in Albuquerque to have access to a neighborhood Italian market -- a real hole in the wall -- that lives by the axiom "little place, huge flavors."

Nothing like a variety of meats and cheeses, sturdy bread, olives and fruit -- and great wine, of course.

Thank you for the fun thread. Between this one and the "favorite pasta/sauce" thread, I think we've found a surprising number of posters who grew up Italian.

Eh -- paisan!

I salute you all with a bowl of Castelvetrano olives!

Castelvetrano

~My philosophy: Dogs are God's most perfect creatures. Angels, here on Earth, who teach us to be better human beings.~

qvcaddition · ‎03-10-2010

@151949

@151949 wrote:
My family is from the mountains of northern Italy. My grandpap had blue eyes ! Anyway his sisters - my great aunts - came from Italy to the USA as teens so they still had many old ways of doing things. In the summer when it was too hot to eat hot food they would make antipasta - OMG a tray about 3 ft across covered - and I mean covered til you couldn't see the tray underneath - with sausages , cheeses, peppers , pickled vegetables and fresh vegetables and fruits.Esp. figs - my favorite but also grapes , cherries & melon slices. And lots & lots of bread cubes. Good tuscan hearty bread. In the center - a bowl of seasoned olive oil which everyone would drag their vegetables through and esp their hot peppers. You would eat the bread to cut the heat of the peppers and the sausages or dip it in the oil and eat it. By the time you were done eating you had olive oil dripping all over your face and clothes. Everyone drank wine - grandpap watered ours down with soda water. Then would come out a tray of desserts - usually cookies.
I made an antipasta for DH & I yesterday , because it was so hot & humid yesterday I didn't want to light the stove. My DH is delighted when I make this. Usually I make it when we are in Pittsburgh because I can get better Italian sausages & cheeses there.But I did my best. Don't need much for just 2 of us anyway. I think most Americans have probably never eaten an authentic antipasta, and honestly , I can't imagine many Americans sloshing down tons of wine, with olive oil soaked food , oil dripping off their chin while everyone else eats from the same bowl of oil , everyone talking and carrying on and laughing. My dad (Irish) hated this and would make himself a plate to eat from - grandpap & his sisters would just shrug. My Mom was right in there with her family though.My Dad called it pigs at the trough.

Hi, I waS raised by my Italian grandma from NORTHERN ITALY, Piemontie,sorry on the spelling. She came to AMERICA at age 17, arranged marriage. We had Antipasta like you, wonderful homemade ravioli, Gnocchi, all homemade pasta and sauces or sugo as she called it. Wonderful cooking. Can,t find it restaurants the way she cooked. RISSOTTO, not the fancy way they make it today and Polenta, again not fancy. I was a depression baby and the polenta, RISSOTTO, tripe were cheap foods, but she made them taste good. Her minestrone soup to die for and though there are some great Italian restaurants I,m sure, can,t match the real McCoy. She came through Ellis Island in the early 1900 to San Francisco right after the 1906 Earthquake.

Thank you for the memories. I,m now 81, and miss the family. My 91 year Young friend, is from Rome, and has never cooked Italian food. They were wealthy, had servants, so her mother never cooked and she never cared to learn. She loved my Grandma,s cooking. We are going next week to an Italian restaurant for Gnocchi. By the way, the way you ate the antipasta with the olive oil and bread, vegetables, she made a pot heated on the stove, with anchovies, garlic, olive oil and melted butter, called Bonu Calda, spelling wrong, but it means hot sauce, from heat, not spice. We dipped our vegetables in it and laid them on the good French bread. This was a winter Friday night meal, being Catholic. Good memories, thanks.

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

@qvcaddition I am 68 and I definitely miss my family and those good times spent with them. What family I have left now are spread all over the globe - if it weren't for facebook we wouldn't even keep in touch.

jaxs mom · ‎04-18-2012

@Ms tyrion2 wrote:
@Venezia wrote:
@151949 wrote:
My family calls it antpastA and it isn't an appetizer - it is a meal. Since they were born & raised in Italy I'll take their word for it.Eaten with your fingers - no dish (except my Dad) just a napkin.A bite of this - a bite of that, seasoned with a lot of conversation and laughter. I love figs and would make a pig of myself on them if my Mom let me. If my grandma made it there would be a bowl of hard boiled eggs alongside.
Sorry, but a check of an Italian dictionary would show the correct spelling of antipasto / antipasti. Just because they were born there, doesn't make the spelling you gave correct. (You've never heard of people born in this country misspelling words? Very often, quite common words.)

Yes, I have (to answer your original question), but like some others have said, there were no faces dripping with olive oil. Been to Italy several times, have Italian friends and studied Italian for four years.

Love Italy and its people. If I ever win the lottery, I'm buying a home there.

I suspect OP is spelling the word the way she heard it pronounced. Many people prounounce Alzheimers disease as Altheimers. They pronounce it that way, so they spell it that way.

Yes, i've noticed people spelling voila, walla too.

Don't Change Your Authenticity for Approval

qvcaddition · ‎03-10-2010

@151949

@151949 wrote:
@qvcaddition I am 68 and I definitely miss my family and those good times spent with them. What family I have left now are spread all over the globe - if it weren't for facebook we wouldn't even keep in touch.

I tried FB, didn,t care for it. I,m 81, and they are all gone physically, but thanks for the memories.

hckynut · ‎03-10-2010

@151949 wrote:
@tends2dogs Until I read this board I never realized how many people never grew up in families the same as mine. Did our family have their problems - sure - everyone does. But the good way way way overshadowed the bad. We were blessed. I think the most important things you give a child are love & security, and we had those in spades.

@151949

The only reason I remember the word "antipasta" is because that is what my mother called it when all 3 of my sisters any myself were at home in the Projects together.

My oldest sister graduated from her Catholic High School during an afternoon ceremony, and she, my mother and myself got on a train that night to leave the city. My sister was meeting her fiance in New Mexico to get married.

He was in the United States Air Corp and was stationed there at that time. Think it was Alimagordo(sure the spelling is wrong) New Mexico. She was only 17 when she got married. Thus when her and my brother-in-law were in town, my mother used "antipasta", and that is my knowledge of the word and events in our family.

My mother did mention her mother having the event, but we never went to them. Took years before she recognized our family, as family. That was pretty much the last few years of her life.

Our family had little, but we had each other/learned to work early/be independent, and we had no animus towards my grandmother or our other relatives. I learned at an early age that some had more than others, but we had all we needed to be a close family in our Projects Apartment.

hckynut(john)

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

@hckynut wrote:
@151949 wrote:
@tends2dogs Until I read this board I never realized how many people never grew up in families the same as mine. Did our family have their problems - sure - everyone does. But the good way way way overshadowed the bad. We were blessed. I think the most important things you give a child are love & security, and we had those in spades.

@151949

The only reason I remember the word "antipasta" is because that is what my mother called it when all 3 of my sisters any myself were at home in the Projects together.

My oldest sister graduated from her Catholic High School during an afternoon ceremony, and she, my mother and myself got on a train that night to leave the city. My sister was meeting her fiance in New Mexico to get married.

He was in the United States Air Corp and was stationed there at that time. Think it was Alimagordo(sure the spelling is wrong) New Mexico. She was only 17 when she got married. Thus when her and my brother-in-law were in town, my mother used "antipasta", and that is my knowledge of the word and events in our family.

My mother did mention her mother having the event, but we never went to them. Took years before she recognized our family, as family. That was pretty much the last few years of her life.

Our family had little, but we had each other/learned to work early/be independent, and we had no animus towards my grandmother or our other relatives. I learned at an early age that some had more than others, but we had all we needed to be a close family in our Projects Apartment.

hckynut(john)

Hey, John, we lived on a pig farm when I was little. Believe me we didn't have much $$$ to spare. The advantage of a farm is that you can grow your food. Back in those days no one had a lot of money. Everyone worked hard, lived payday to payday, and struggled to put a little aside for a rainy day. We mostly wore hand me downs from relatives , but that was OK - so did everyone else we knew.