Fried Okra and Tang Part II

As I mentioned in my previous post, my mother did adopt a bit of my Grandmother's southern cooking style into her own kitchen, and would occasionally serve us fried chicken gizzards along with fried okra. As a child, I liked these little chewy, gummy niblets, but as I hit adolescence, my willing consumption of them slowed. I tried vegetarianism for a time while in high school, and that changed our eating habits a bit.

While my mother did pick up a couple meals from her southern mother-in-law, I remember most of the meals she prepared at home were Italian. My father was in the Navy in the 1960s and 70s, and my mother and sister lived in Naples while his ship was stationed off the Italian coast for a few years. Most of her cooking techniques and inspiration were rooted in this culinary experience of Italy. My mother was a wonderful cook. Some favorite meals I remember fondly are Pasta e Fagiole (soup with pork and white beans), spaghetti with white clam sauce, fried zucchini, minestrone soup, spaghetti carbonara (my personal favorite, and the first thing I called home to learn how to cook while living away from home for the first time), and of course, lasagna. These meals would be accompanied by stories of my family's time in Italy: the time my mother and sister came home to find their apartment robbed, the time my sister got ringworm, how nervous my mom was with my sister sucking her thumb while traveling all over the "dirty" streets of Naples, fond memories of their British neighbors, how I was conceived in Italy, likely on New Year's Eve 1974...I felt that even though their time living overseas occurred before I was born, I had a living experience of how their time there shaped our whole family's life together. It certainly shaped our family's experience of culture and food.

I recommend the following books to explore these two culinary cultures:

Harris, Valentina. Regional Italian Cooking. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

and

Walter, Eugene, 1921-1998. American Cooking: Southern Style. New York: Time-Life Books, 1971.