Just In Casa

April 30, 2020

I grew up in a duplex furnished in mid-century modern, from the Scandinavian furniture to the square plates on our teak table. These pieces announced that my parents were stylish, cosmopolitan people.

The basement was another story. It’s where old furniture went to die and yes, we had the mandatory second kitchen and food production area that graced all Italian duplexes in Montreal. Tucked in the back of the basement was the cantina (cold storage room). The steel shelves were always bursting with jars of tomato sauce and vegetable preserves, olive oil, flour, damigiane (16 gallon containers) of wine, and oregano from the garden, hung to dry like chandeliers. Basically any food that could keep was there. Another shelf was jammed with toilet paper, bleach and other sundries that were bought in desperate quantities on sale. I remember when stores started limiting our purchases to three items per customer, forcing us to to change our shopping habits. We made sure to go to the store several times consecutively. And switched to another cashier.

In the fall, our basement turned into a full-blown production centre for wine. Tomatoes and vegetables from the garden were prepared and stored in Mason jars.

The duplex was the ideal house for ‘having it all’. Italians could live both an agricultural and urban version of the American Dream. This was cultural negotiation — Italian style. It was a necessity that allowed the intense labour of food traditions to be done in privacy, while the upstairs responded to Canadian cultural expectations. The downstairs represented where my parents came from and the upstairs was who they had become. The two floors were perfectly symbolic of how they layered their Italian-Canadian identities.

I used to ask my parents, “Why do you have so much food in the cantina? Are you stocking up for World War III?” They weren’t impressed with my interrogation. The strange thing was that my parents had not been agricultural workers in Italy, so the cantina and food production was not an extension of what they did, but probably a reaction to what they lived during the war.

The cantina was like having ‘food insurance’. It insured that they always had the food they liked. I didn’t live through a war, so what did I know about insecurity.

When I was a teenager and invited Canadian friends to the house, I avoided taking them into the cantina. I was embarrassed. Would they think we were poor? They had pantries lined with floral wallpaper. We had a food bunker.

I sat through endless conversations with my parents and their friends as they bragged about what they ate during the war. Oh no! Not the war stories! “During the war” my mother would say, “we would soak stale bread in water and rub a little oil, tomato and oregano on top. We called it ‘Acquasanta’ (holy water).” Everyone agreed how delicious it was. Imagine disguising stale bread as holy water? What a scam, I thought. As hard as I tried to resist their propaganda on frugality, these stories became part of my childhood soundtrack and I internalized their values.

‘What we ate during the war stories’ were told with a sense of pride. They were deployed like a game of rock-paper-scissors, where storytellers would try to up the ante about who did more with less.

What I never realized was how my experiences with food war stories and practices impacted my habits. It’s never been clearer than it is now with the COVID-19 lockdown.

First, it legitimized the cantina and the notion of how important it is to be ready with provisions — at any time. This gives me a sense of security knowing that I am going to eat well without leaving my house for a while. Knowing how to cook from scratch using simple ingredients also removes my anxieties. It reaffirms that I’m going to be okay. The Great Generation were champions at survival and frugality, two qualities we need now more than ever.

I went from being a vigilant little girl who wanted to be “Canadian” to becoming an Italian woman who proudly displays her know-how and her cantina as badges of honour. Thankfully those war stories wore off on me.

Quantity: You are making a plate of pasta with beans. So imagine the quantity you want on your plate. Remember beans are the condiment.

Ingredients and Preparation
Some onion: cut it really small so they kind of melt.
Some celery: Cut it into really small pieces. The leaves are best but now grocers tend to cut the leaves off the stalks when they sell them at the store. Idiots.
Fresh tomato: The tomato has to be mature. Peel it and cut it into small pieces. One or two, depending on the size. You’re NOT making tomato sauce, you are gently coating everything with tomato.
Olive oil
White Kidney Beans
Salt: You decide!
Pasta
The best is a short pasta rigata (with the lines). You want the beans to be intimate with the pasta, so choose something that is compatible in size.

Make
Fry the onion and celery first in the olive oil. Get the onion to the point BEFORE it burns — more flavour. You don’t need a lot of these ingredients, they are there for scent and flavour only.

Add the tomato. Smash them.

Once the tomato looks cooked, add the beans and mix together, just keep it warm.

Boil your pasta, mix it with your beans.

Buon appetito!

Joyce Pillarella grew up in the lanes, streets, and parks of Ville Emard, in Montreal. She hated History, Politics, English and Italian Studies in high school. Now she is an oral historian, writer, teacher and a protagonist of Italian Canadian history.