There’s a ritual in my family.  It’s pasta on Sundays.  We all do it, my six sisters and I.  We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember and likely many generations before us.  We’re Italian. Finamore as in fin (the end or ultimate, depending on your interpretation) and amore (love). In truth, my sisters and I are only half Italian, but we never really identified as anything but Italian.  My mother is mixture of Scotch Irish and French.  Saying we were Italian was easier because my father is all Italian. We identified with the ancestry with the highest percent affiliation. Majority rules in bloodlines, I suppose.

There was plenty of food on Sunday, even if it meant eating popcorn for dinner other nights.  Feeding seven kids on my mother’s receptionist’s salary was no small feat, so we made do.  But every Sunday was the same -- always “sauce” which meant marinara sauce. It would be decades before I knew that term.  We just said sauce.  There was no other kind.  If we were speaking to non-family members, then we might say “spaghetti sauce” just to be clear, but for all of us, we knew what we meant by “sauce.”    

Mass was at 10:30 so mom was either up early to put the sauce on or we’d make it the day before.  When made ahead, my sister Gloria, just three years older than me and the closest in age, would fight with me over who got to squeeze the tomatoes. Somehow feeling the canned whole tomatoes erupt from the pressure of my squeeze was a thrill for me.  I’m guessing it was for Gloria as well because of the fierce battle that usually ensued to see who mom would choose for the job.  “You did it last time.” “No, I didn’t you did.” “Mom, he’s lying, can I do it this time, please?” Being the distributor of justice, Mom would usually split the task up so that she didn’t have to listen to any more griping.  “Frankie, you open the can and Gloria you can squeeze the tomatoes in.  Then, Frankie do you want to mix the meatballs?”  “OK!” I’d say enthusiastically. Squeezing the meat was the  best job -- even better than the tomatoes.  You get to feel the cold meat ooze between your fingers. 

Now a man, I wonder about the fascination with the squeezing.  Was it just that it felt good or that, for a moment, I had been given some preferred status by mom?  With seven, individual attention didn’t come easy or often so be the chosen one perhaps took on special significance. Looking back now I wish I’d hung back a bit more and seceded more attention to Gloria. Perhaps my wanting to be acknowledged led to her being less so. I’m not sure, but I imagine today that she doesn’t often see the beauty and love that is within her.  But my five year old self, could only gloat a bit in having been rewarded the more sought-after job of making the meatballs.   

After Mass, my father, Frank Sr., would come to visit. We didn’t know exactly when he’d arrive.  He didn’t call and we didn’t know how to reach him.  He would just show up, usually with soda, wine and beer in hand.  His contribution to our weekly family event.  We all looked forward to it, although I’m not sure how my mother felt.  It’s amazing to me now that she would cook and clean each week for her estranged husband.   But then again, love and rejection, I know, often leads one to doing what might seem puzzling to outsiders.

To me, my father represented a strange masculinity that I was unaccustomed to the other six days of the week.  He was scruffy and although I couldn’t wait for his kiss, like his love, it always hurt a bit.  His mustache was bristly against my smooth skin.  But we always kissed anyway.  It was probably the one way that my gender didn’t affect our relationship.  He dolled out hugs and kisses to his female children and me equally and always with a squeeze of the cheek to follow.  Perhaps it was being Italian that made it acceptable.  All of the men in my extended family kiss each other.  It shows our love and respect for one another. 

The meal was the centerpiece of the day and we made it stretch on for hours, with games and conversation between courses of pasta, eggplant, bragiole (thin strips of beef and garlic, rolled and cooked in the sauce), salad, casatiello (Italian Easter bread), and usually dessert.  We began eating and drinking almost as soon as Daddy arrived.  First a bit of sauce and bread.  “Just to tide you over” Mom would say.  With lots of ground pepper and parmesan on top. Is there a better food?  Looking back now I know at some deeper level that we were not only physically hungry, but also hungry for a sense of normalcy.  We were perhaps more accustomed to our physical hunger.  The late 60’s and 70’s wasn’t exactly the most comfortable or accepting time to be from a “broken” family of Italian Catholics. 

Today, I still cook sauce on Sundays.  I guess I am a creature of habit, a product of my ancestry, or both. Without pasta, the day feels somehow incomplete.  It grounds me in my heritage, but also in that sense of the importance of family, in whatever configuration, to feeling loved, secure, and happy.  I can only hope that my son feels that each day, but especially over shared meals.  Sacred meals that feed our souls as much as our stomachs. Knowing that my sisters are also likely having the same meal, although thousands of miles away, brings warmth to my heart.  The same warmth that I felt from them while growing up, trying to make sense of our our family in that idyllic suburban setting where every other house looked the same, except ours only had one parent on most days.