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Something Missing
I was standing in the kitchen of my New Jersey home when it hit me. I had no real food lineage. My two sons often begged for artificially colored snack foods and packaged treats that I’m not even sure could be called food. Everything was moving so quickly—cars, time, meals. Something was missing.With the holidays approaching soon, I wanted to slow down and cook something wonderful, an authentic family recipe that would span generations and tell a story. My ancestors came from Europe—Ireland, Germany, Italy, Croatia—with all roads leading to the city of Hoboken, New Jersey. But before this, all was a mystery to me. What had people in my family made years ago? What were the foods that mattered most to them? I had no idea. So I set off to find out.
In time, my father’s Italian family offered an answer. The Schenones had brought to America the recipes of Genoa, where my great-grandmother, Adalgiza, was from. Her ravioli was the real deal. In Genoa, ravioli is the essential food of Christmas, birthdays and village feasts. It was food for celebrating.
My plan was to learn as much as I could about Adalgiza’s ravioli and then, with luck, actually make some.
The first person I reached was my father’s 80-something cousin Adele. “I didn’t cook many Genoese dishes. We were in America. We wanted to be American.”
“What about the ravioli?” I said.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “My daughter and I just made 300 of them.”
Several weeks later, an envelope arrived from Adele and her daughter. It contained three recipe cards: one for spinach frittata, another for stuffed zucchini and a third for ravioli—Adalgiza’s ravioli. Here it was. My heart actually pounded.
I scanned the ingredients: veal, beef, spinach, eggs, Parmesan cheese … all expected. Then I stumbled on another ingredient. I read it again. There had to be a mistake.
Cream cheese, as in the Philadelphia kind? From Kraft? Surely this was an Americanized substitution, but for what? I learned later that Adalgiza was probably trying to replace prescinseua, a lovely, smooth local cheese.
Meanwhile, my requests were paying off, because in mid-November I came home to hear this message on my phone: “Laura, this is cousin Millie. My daughter Susan and I are making ravioli on December sixth. You’re welcome to come.”
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