Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds, and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family

by Louise DeSalvo

  She would stand in the kitchen, frying tiny meatballs to feed people as they came to visit, so they wouldn't spend even a moment in her home without having something to eat. As she stirred vats of tomato sauce, she wiped her brow with the handkerchief she concealed in her sleeve. She struggled up from the basement with trays of homemade pasta, often in intricate shapes that would take a long time to fashion.

  After the family ate their antipasti, their pasta, their meats and contorni, their desserts, their nuts and figs, after they relaxed for a while at the table, after the children played, the old man would tell someone to go into the kitchen to tell his wife to make some panini from the leftovers in case someone was hungry.

  My husband remembers that his grandfather never cleared a plate from the table, never entered the kitchen, never spoke to his wife.

  "He never lifted a finger to help her," my husband said. "And no one objected. Sometimes the women tried to help. But she shooed them away. She didn't know how to let anyone help her."

  After she died, my husband learned that his grandmother, who had given birth to five children, had become pregnant nearly every year. His mother once told him that the women in the family knew she had had more than twenty abortions. She had hidden these pregnancies from her husband because they were illegal and also against Church doctrine, and he would have forbidden her to terminate them.

  Everyone in the family was terrified of my husband's grandfather. He had a murderous temper. That his sons were stronger than he was and could have defeated him didn't matter. His children were taught to respect their father, no matter what. In the name of respect, he abused them. In the name of respect, they were supposed to allow him to beat them. When the children objected, they were beaten even more severely. Their mother was too terrified, too worn out to protect her children.

  And so, except for his favored son, he tyrannized his family, and treated its members as if he had the power of life and death over them. He allowed them no freedom, no dignity. He colonized them, even as his people in the South had been colonized.

  She died years before her husband. She looked thirty years older than she was.

  "She died from hard work," the women in the family said. "And all those abortions."

  "She died because the old man was a bastard," my husband's father says.

  "She died because she was despised and mistreated," my husband and I say to each other.

  After his wife's death, his favorite son moves in with him. Now his wife (not Italian American but Irish American) takes on the responsibilities of the kitchen. She works almost as hard as her mother-in-law and she, too is mistreated. But she complains all the time. Her husband is always telling her to shut up. But after the old woman's death, there are no more freshly killed chickens, no more fresh pasta, and no more home-grown vegetables.

  When the old man dies, although they all send flowers with ribboned bands that read "Farewell, Father," no one, except his favored son, mourns his passing. "Good riddance to bad rubbish," my mother says, when she finds out the old man has died. ("Good riddance to bad rubbish," she says when my father's father dies.)

  At my husband's grandfather's wake, no one, except the favored son, sits in the chairs in the room with his body to welcome mourners. Everyone stands in the hallway where they cannot see him. They share stories about what a bastard he was. About how he would only eat fresh-killed chickens. About how their mother was a saint. About how he killed his wife. About how he almost killed each of them.

  And during the wake, which lasts for three days, no one in the family, except his favored son, goes up to the coffin to pay their last respects.

  After the wake, the family gathers in the Bronx at a local Italian restaurant. We eat the usual— antipasti, spaghetti with red sauce, chicken parm, Italian pastries or gelato.

  The eldest son, the favored son, stands up to make a toast. "To the dearly departed," he says. "May he rest in peace."

  "May he rest in peace," the family echoes. But no one stands.

  NIGHTMARE (WITHOUT FOOD)

  My mother and I shared very little. But we had the same recurring dream. Sometimes I thought that this dream traveled from her spirit to mine through the umbilicus connecting us while I was in utero, along with the fluids, nutrients, and antibodies that passed from her body to mine.

  I wonder whether I began to dream this dream as my mother was dreaming it, while I was still safely inside her. When there was no decision she had to make about feeding me or not feeding me. When her body was generous with its gifts, generous in nourishing me. When feeding me was not accompanied (as it was after I was born) by anxiety, recrimination, regret.

  My mother told me about her dream just once. We were drinking tea in my apartment. I was a new mother. She came to help me care for my newborn son in those difficult days after I came home from the hospital. Those days that no one can prepare you for, when you realize that your life, your old self, has vaporized. When you do not yet know what the word "mother" will mean for you, though you must do all the things that mothers are supposed to do.

  During those weeks, we were closer than we ever were before, closer than we ever would be again. We were joined in a conspiracy of bottles, blankets, diapers.

  My need permitted our closeness. We would sit at the kitchen table, stirring our tea, in those precious moments of silence when my baby was sleeping, those moments when new mothers understand, for the first time, the meaning of quiet, the necessity of solitude, and how the mere act of sitting down can be the most satisfying pleasure the world can provide. And during those moments, my mother spoke to me of her lost mother, of her loveless relationship with her stepmother, of her unrealized dreams, of how difficult it was to care for me as a child, of her nightmares.

  In the past, I would have foreclosed this conversation, would not have wanted to hear what she had to say. But I was failing as miserably in satisfying this alien creature who, people told me, was my child, as she had as a young mother in satisfying me. I understood my mother's stories as an apologia for her difficult mothering. And an explanation for mine.

  I said very little, because I was beyond expression, beyond language, almost beyond comprehension. All I wanted to do was sleep, for, like every new mother, I was sleeping almost not at all, and working harder than I ever worked before, at a job that I didn't understand, and one for which I had no training.

  Everything was a shock; everything was a surprise. My fantasy of a baby clean, fed, diapered, sleeping peacefully in my arms while I rocked and read a book, was replaced by the piss-and-shit reality of new motherhood. "Why didn't anyone tell me what it would be like?" I screamed inside. "Why didn't she tell me?"— even though I knew I wouldn't have believed, even though I knew I would have thought it wouldn't be like that for me.

  At a lull in the conversation, as we watch the snow accumulate on the street outside, I ask her why no one prepares women for the reality of motherhood. "Because," my mother said, "then there would be no more children."

  I looked and felt ravaged. I couldn't figure out when my baby was hungry, when he was full, when he was tired, when he needed to be alone, when he needed me to comfort him. All his cries sounded the same, a wail of desperation in a code I could not decipher.

  It was a brutal winter. I washed laundry. Hung it outside, where it froze. Took it inside to defrost. Draped it all over the apartment. Walked through snowbanks clutching my baby to my chest to buy formula, once leaving him at home sleeping during a blizzard, terrified that when I came home, he'd be dead. I wished for spring. I wished for my old life.

  My son was a tiny baby, premature, high-strung because I had smoked throughout my pregnancy. (This was before the harmful effects of smoking were publicized.)

  He couldn't drink very much in one feeding. Soon after I finished feeding him, burping him, changing him, and putting him in his crib to sleep, he'd be ready to feed again. Whenever I fell into a sound sleep, he'd awaken.

  Perhaps my mother believed that s
he could unravel whatever ill she had done to me as a child by helping me, by caring for my son. Whatever the reason, she was a model grandmother. Taught me how to be a grandmother. When she came to help, she ordered me to bed, took over, never told me whether she'd had any difficulty. My baby was fed and freshly diapered. My laundry was folded; my dishes were washed, dried, and replaced on their shelves. All this now seemed easy to my mother.

  When my mother was around my children (in a few years there would be another son), she came alive. She played blocks with them on the floor; walked them in their carriages; took them on excursions to the beach; cooked with them; made them zeppole for breakfast when they slept over; let them bounce on her bed; laughed when they defaced her furniture, plopped their ice cream onto the sidewalk, unraveled rolls of toilet tissue. Caught the moment with a photo. And she always let them eat whatever they wanted— ice cream for supper; hot dogs for breakfast; donuts for lunch— whenever they wanted, though she would feign disapproval.

  I was grateful for all this. But envious, too. Where was the mother I had known? When had she shape-shifted into this loving presence? If she could be so indulgent with my children, if she could enjoy them so much, I wondered, why couldn't she have indulged and enjoyed me?

  Grateful for her help, I listened to my mother's stories during this miasmic time. Stories I would hear once, and not again. I was happy for them. They passed the time. They gave me explanations. They gave me more of her than I had ever had.

  One of my mother's stories was about a dream she had every few days. A dream very like my own, although I never told her this.

  Oh, the details diverged. Her dream might begin in a city; mine, in the country. She might find herself dressed poorly; I might be unaware of my clothing, or I might be wearing nothing at all. And the people she encountered were different from those I encountered. They had different faces, different ways of behaving, a different language. But stripped of all superficialities, our dreams were the same dream.

  To begin. We are in a strange place, not an unpleasant place on the surface, but there is a disquiet we feel because we know we are not home. We want to be home, only we have forgotten where home is. We know we must leave this place soon, for otherwise something awful will happen to us.

  We are, of course, alone. And we can recall what home is like, or rather, what we want home to be like— safe, secure, serene, beautiful. We know that there is a way to get there, if only we can find the right road, if only we can remember where home is, or, rather, was.

  At some point in our dream, we look for a car, a bus, an airplane. We decide that it is absolutely necessary to find a way to hurry ourselves through a dark and unfamiliar landscape and if we just find the right conveyance, it will take us home. It will know where home is, even if we don't know.

  So we look. And we think that we have found what we need. But it disappears. Or it isn't where someone told us it should be.

  This is where the dream starts making us toss and turn in our sleep. This is when we each start moaning. This is when our sleeping partners try to wake us, when they ask us if we're dreaming, ask us if we're all right. They are used to this. This happens regularly— once every few days for her; once every other week for me.

  We are moaning because we can't find where we left our car, where the bus station is, where the airport is located. So, now, not only do we not remember where home is, now we also cannot find a way to get there. Or, if not there, then anywhere but where we are. For where we are is not safe.

  You will notice there is no food in our dreams. No place where we stop, sit, sip some water, eat something to nourish us for our journey.

  At this point, we might encounter an earthquake, a mudslide, an invading army, a stampede of people running in our direction, a huge snowstorm, a scorching sun-baked plain— something that makes it even more difficult for us to find a way to be miraculously taken home. We never ask anyone to help us: we know that no one will or can.

  Here, my mother becomes terrified of what confronts her. She freezes, like a deer caught in lightbeams. Sometimes, she finds herself falling into deep crevasses, sucked into oceanic whirlpools, licked by sheets of fire. She is sure, now, that she'll die trying to find her way home. This is when she awakens— screaming, thrashing, sweating, heart pounding. The next day will be a difficult one.

  At overcoming impediments, I am better than my mother. I summon my courage. I move over, around, through whatever blocks my passage. I am not harmed, though what I am looking for still eludes me. And, by the end of my dream, when I awaken— thrashing, sweating, heart pounding— what I so desperately longed for is still missing.

  Sometimes, though, I get distracted. Decide that some children I find along the way need my care. So I abandon my quest, but not without becoming enraged that I have put their needs before mine.

  My dream. My mother's dream. A dream about losing a mother, a home, a country. Sometimes a dream about being a mother, too.

  It is also a dream of exile. A dream about leaving, but not knowing what it is you have left. A dream of never being able to return home.

  FOOD FIGHTS

  There is something about watching another person rinsing the spinach in the sink, or chopping an onion, or tearing the lettuce that brings out the worst in people, that brings out the worst in you.

  "There's still sand on those leaves," you say, the scorn in your voice perceptible. You imagine the sauteed spinach with garlic, gritty with dirt, the dinner ruined utterly, the day bankrupt thereby. You have convinced yourself that a good dinner is very important, the most important event in your day. More important, even— to judge by the way you behave— than the feelings of family members who partake of that dinner.

  Still, you cannot control yourself.

  "There's still sand on those leaves, I said. Will you please give them another rinse?"

  And you think that if he doesn't realize the spinach needs another wash, he mustn't see anything truly important in this world— a beautiful flower on a spring morning; a sunset across a wide expanse of icy bay.

  You remember the teachings of Zen Buddhism: the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And so you are right to conclude that the way he washes spinach is the way he does everything else in the world. His way of washing spinach provides you with a window into his soul. (You remember the teachings of Zen Buddhism about acceptance. You tell yourself they do not apply here. For you cannot, no, you cannot accept the slipshod way he prepares food. Food must be respected, you tell yourself. That is the Zen Buddhist way.)

  You reflect that your way of thinking that his way of washing the spinach provides you with a window into his soul also provides you with a window into yours. But you want to think about his soul, not yours. You think he should do something to change his soul, not that you must change yours.

  But perhaps you can accept the way he is. Or accept the way you are. But then there would be no fighting in the kitchen, no drama. Then the kitchen would be a relaxed and serene place. Which you seem not to want it to be.

  "The recipe says to mince the onions, not to chop them," you scold. You hate the sound of your voice. But you think, "That man is not a detail man; that man takes shortcuts. Which is why his Christmas packages look sloppy; which is why the kitchen faucet still drips; which is why the basement is still a mess; which is why the meals he cooks are good but not masterpieces." (You should be grateful, you know, that he cooks. Still, you want him to cook for you not the way he cooks for you, but the way you cook for him. Perfectly.)

  When you think these things, and you cannot stop yourself from thinking these things, you hate yourself. You realize that beneath all that superficial niceness the people in your public life see— your students, the people who read your books— a truly evil person is lurking. A shadow self hides in the kitchen; she lunges after her prey like a wolverine. The people in your public life never see this self, would be shocked to know she existed. For this self lives at home And her favorite pl
ace is the kitchen.

  Often, when she appears, you blame your mother. You blame the way she fought with your grandmother in the kitchen. You tell yourself you have no role model for civilized kitchen behavior. And so you excuse yourself. You are, after all, your mother's daughter. Remembering the way your mother behaved in the kitchen makes you feel better, absolves you of responsibility for the diabolical person you are.

  But this doesn't make you happy. You realize you can't blame her, you're too old. You realize that you're mean and petty, that your values suck, that you ruin everything, that you put what is not important— perfectly rinsed spinach, perfectly minced onion, perfectly torn lettuce leaves— before what is important— your marriage, your relationship with your husband, your capacity for tolerance, your serenity.

  You remind yourself that you are lucky that you are married to someone who cooks and cleans. That you are married to someone who makes you dinner (sometimes, even, a spectacular dinner— a tiny rack of lamb on your birthday a few years before, crusted with champagne mustard and fresh bread crumbs in a Merlot sauce, yum, yum). That he always cooks for you on the nights you work late and come home too exhausted to cook (pumpkin ravioli with a sweetened butter-and-truffle-oil sauce, and strips of sage).

  You vow that the next time you see your husband fucking up in the kitchen, assassinating the carrots, say, or massacring the eggplant, you won't utter a word. You'll find your center. Breathe in. Breathe out. You'll accept what he's doing. You'll prove to yourself that your meditation practice is helping, that your therapy is working, and the next time you go to your therapist, you'll thank her— they need that, therapists, some occasional positive feedback to balance all those hours of sitting there and listening to lunatics like you.

  You think that if you can keep your mouth shut, if you can control yourself and not spring across the kitchen to pull the carrot out of his hand and tell him, "No, no, no, I said mince, not dice, and don't you know the difference after all these years?," then, one day, you can quit therapy. (And think of all the money you'd save, and all the great new kitchen equipment you could buy— an Italian gelato machine; a stainless steel espresso maker; a really gigantic pasta pot.)