A COMPARISON: FOOD, FORMALITY, HEALTH CARE
Today I am continuing yesterday's story about comparing Sciacca, Sicily, and Dunkirk, NY
Food
Despite the importance of the slow food tradition here, todays Sicilians seem to have an enchantment with all things instant. White bread in packages and the use of instant, frozen meals is becoming widespread. There are even a few McDonalds restaurants in Sicily now. Fortunately there is now a government push to recognize the heritage of fresh and tasty Sicilian food for export marketing. Maybe this will remind Sicilians of how good they have it here.
Although I grew up on a farm with an orchard and had a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables and mostly homemade food, I dont think my experience of more fresh food than processed food was unique in the 50s. For one thing, frozen and canned foods were not as cheap as they have come to be. But both of my grandmothers told me that the thing they missed most about Sicily was the taste of the food. Where we live now in agricultural Agrigento province, we get the freshest of the seasons artichokes and cardoon, fava beans and strawberries, melons and peaches. Once you eat an orange or tomato grown here, you will understand what my poor grandmothers missed. And elderly people picking greenery and snails by the side of the road is as common a sight here just as when I was a kid. We joked about the old ladies in black dresses and black stockings then!
Sicily is changing though. Modern life for Northern Italians is quickly becoming faster paced, more like in the states than like their countrymen in Sicily. Northerners depend more on factory work and traditional jobs without a pranzo (long lunch) break, so they are gradually becoming dependent on fast food. The tradition of kids coming home from school for lunch, as I did in the 50s, is diminishing. But here, Sciacchitani still eat a large family meal together about 2 PM every day, with mother and dad home from work to meet the kids coming home from school. And still traditional here is the emphasis on the value of food-from-scratch. I have enjoyed recipe exchanges with my new friends here even before I spoke much Italian, recipes far less precise than American ones (a pinch as an amount, till its done as a time measure), but just delicious.
Formality
There is an emphasis here on the correct way to do things in all social matters. This formality is maybe not so much formal, but a formula for how to behave politely, and I remember having to learn these same rules when I was a kid. I am always addressed now as Signora by strangers, and I am expected to speak to strangers when they enter a store, to call Buongiorno and Buon pranzo to anyone as I leave. Showing respect to those who you deal with closely by giving bacci (kisses) is still always emphasized. I remember having to kiss relatives that I barely knew when I was a kid. Now friends make their younger children kiss me. I have come full circle!
You can see this formality in terms of most peoples clothing. When I was a child, there was always a set of good clothes that we had to keep in optimum condition for Sundays. I was one of those little girls who wore white gloves every Sunday, and carried a purse with a clean white ironed handkerchief in it. I learned early that people judged you by what you wore, that clothing was not just for covering your body, but it was for show.
Here, women my age and even younger will still not be caught in public without a girdle and stockings. Older men are always in wool suit jackets and typical Sicilian hats, women in (often) elegant knit suits, stockings, and leather shoes no matter what the weather. Fur coats and dyed (usually red) hair are the norm. Babies and toddlers wear miniature adult clothing, not hand-me-downs. Even the various jobs in town are signaled by the uniforms workers wear. Just as in America in the 50s, gas station attendants always have them on, as do maintenance workers and repairmen of all kinds. I look on these customs with interest, but as an American, I am afraid that I am just too used to comfort. Perhaps if I were younger this would not be the case, but no matter how Sicilian I look, I will never pass because my uniform of jeans and sneakers is too foreign at this time in Sicily.
Visible formality can be seen in Sicilian homes, too, a formality not seen in the US in years. Besides being spotless, they all have a formal area for entertaining, with the good furniture, family pictures and decorations. Of course there is a private, more comfortable and messy part of the house just for the family, but as I remember from my childhood, a lot of informal entertaining takes place around the big kitchen table. When I was a kid in Dunkirk, parlors complete with usually uncomfortable formal furniture and doilies were common. They were unused and they were for good, not for everyday use.
Health care
Sicilians in the states and here have come a long way from the malocchio that my grandmothers so firmly believed in. But today in Sicily there are still Magi, who claim that they can effect cures through prayer and various magical incantations (for the right price). They travel around and advertise in flyers and posters, and we hear about occasional problems they have with unhappy customers in the newspapers.
In world health rankings, Italian medicine is right up there, but its quality varies drastically from region to region. Sicily does not have one of the more highly developed health care systems, with problems especially in the lack of available hospital beds. But here, just as when I was a kid, doctors are trusted implicitly as wise men that will make you better with a pill. House calls are even possible if you know the right people.
And folk medicine is certainly practiced here, just as I saw when I was a kid. Poultices and garlic cloves, amulets and religious objects are applied to the body in various positions, scarves worn around the neck over various rubs and pastes. Abuse of penicillin and other anti-viral drugs is big because people do not seem to care about viral immunity problems. Yogurt based anti-bacterial products to drink daily are also big, and ads to encourage ingestion of them are prolific.
The importance of exercise is not always understood here, especially since life is so physically hard for a lot of people in this agricultural setting. Although there is some jogging and biking, organized sports in Sciacca consists mostly of soccer and dance. Sicilians my age will still say it is a waste of time since exercise was something that came about as part of their daily life when they were younger. I can remember my parents saying the same things to us kids when we wanted to join team sports.
Beaches are still full of sun bathers who do not swim, but stand in the water working on their tans, as if skin cancer was never heard of, just as I did every summer. And kids do not go in swimming until ½ hour after they have eaten, just like I remember. How I hated waiting that ½ hour!
Food
Despite the importance of the slow food tradition here, todays Sicilians seem to have an enchantment with all things instant. White bread in packages and the use of instant, frozen meals is becoming widespread. There are even a few McDonalds restaurants in Sicily now. Fortunately there is now a government push to recognize the heritage of fresh and tasty Sicilian food for export marketing. Maybe this will remind Sicilians of how good they have it here.
Although I grew up on a farm with an orchard and had a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables and mostly homemade food, I dont think my experience of more fresh food than processed food was unique in the 50s. For one thing, frozen and canned foods were not as cheap as they have come to be. But both of my grandmothers told me that the thing they missed most about Sicily was the taste of the food. Where we live now in agricultural Agrigento province, we get the freshest of the seasons artichokes and cardoon, fava beans and strawberries, melons and peaches. Once you eat an orange or tomato grown here, you will understand what my poor grandmothers missed. And elderly people picking greenery and snails by the side of the road is as common a sight here just as when I was a kid. We joked about the old ladies in black dresses and black stockings then!
Sicily is changing though. Modern life for Northern Italians is quickly becoming faster paced, more like in the states than like their countrymen in Sicily. Northerners depend more on factory work and traditional jobs without a pranzo (long lunch) break, so they are gradually becoming dependent on fast food. The tradition of kids coming home from school for lunch, as I did in the 50s, is diminishing. But here, Sciacchitani still eat a large family meal together about 2 PM every day, with mother and dad home from work to meet the kids coming home from school. And still traditional here is the emphasis on the value of food-from-scratch. I have enjoyed recipe exchanges with my new friends here even before I spoke much Italian, recipes far less precise than American ones (a pinch as an amount, till its done as a time measure), but just delicious.
Formality
There is an emphasis here on the correct way to do things in all social matters. This formality is maybe not so much formal, but a formula for how to behave politely, and I remember having to learn these same rules when I was a kid. I am always addressed now as Signora by strangers, and I am expected to speak to strangers when they enter a store, to call Buongiorno and Buon pranzo to anyone as I leave. Showing respect to those who you deal with closely by giving bacci (kisses) is still always emphasized. I remember having to kiss relatives that I barely knew when I was a kid. Now friends make their younger children kiss me. I have come full circle!
You can see this formality in terms of most peoples clothing. When I was a child, there was always a set of good clothes that we had to keep in optimum condition for Sundays. I was one of those little girls who wore white gloves every Sunday, and carried a purse with a clean white ironed handkerchief in it. I learned early that people judged you by what you wore, that clothing was not just for covering your body, but it was for show.
Here, women my age and even younger will still not be caught in public without a girdle and stockings. Older men are always in wool suit jackets and typical Sicilian hats, women in (often) elegant knit suits, stockings, and leather shoes no matter what the weather. Fur coats and dyed (usually red) hair are the norm. Babies and toddlers wear miniature adult clothing, not hand-me-downs. Even the various jobs in town are signaled by the uniforms workers wear. Just as in America in the 50s, gas station attendants always have them on, as do maintenance workers and repairmen of all kinds. I look on these customs with interest, but as an American, I am afraid that I am just too used to comfort. Perhaps if I were younger this would not be the case, but no matter how Sicilian I look, I will never pass because my uniform of jeans and sneakers is too foreign at this time in Sicily.
Visible formality can be seen in Sicilian homes, too, a formality not seen in the US in years. Besides being spotless, they all have a formal area for entertaining, with the good furniture, family pictures and decorations. Of course there is a private, more comfortable and messy part of the house just for the family, but as I remember from my childhood, a lot of informal entertaining takes place around the big kitchen table. When I was a kid in Dunkirk, parlors complete with usually uncomfortable formal furniture and doilies were common. They were unused and they were for good, not for everyday use.
Health care
Sicilians in the states and here have come a long way from the malocchio that my grandmothers so firmly believed in. But today in Sicily there are still Magi, who claim that they can effect cures through prayer and various magical incantations (for the right price). They travel around and advertise in flyers and posters, and we hear about occasional problems they have with unhappy customers in the newspapers.
In world health rankings, Italian medicine is right up there, but its quality varies drastically from region to region. Sicily does not have one of the more highly developed health care systems, with problems especially in the lack of available hospital beds. But here, just as when I was a kid, doctors are trusted implicitly as wise men that will make you better with a pill. House calls are even possible if you know the right people.
And folk medicine is certainly practiced here, just as I saw when I was a kid. Poultices and garlic cloves, amulets and religious objects are applied to the body in various positions, scarves worn around the neck over various rubs and pastes. Abuse of penicillin and other anti-viral drugs is big because people do not seem to care about viral immunity problems. Yogurt based anti-bacterial products to drink daily are also big, and ads to encourage ingestion of them are prolific.
The importance of exercise is not always understood here, especially since life is so physically hard for a lot of people in this agricultural setting. Although there is some jogging and biking, organized sports in Sciacca consists mostly of soccer and dance. Sicilians my age will still say it is a waste of time since exercise was something that came about as part of their daily life when they were younger. I can remember my parents saying the same things to us kids when we wanted to join team sports.
Beaches are still full of sun bathers who do not swim, but stand in the water working on their tans, as if skin cancer was never heard of, just as I did every summer. And kids do not go in swimming until ½ hour after they have eaten, just like I remember. How I hated waiting that ½ hour!
posted by Sicilian Mama at 7:44 AM
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