How Identity Bottoms Out In The Kitchen - Miserable Cooks Think They Are Five-Star Chefs, A Political Metaphor

Maria Salvatore Jenkins was the grand daughter of Italian immigrants who had settled in New Haven early in the last century.  At the time Wooster Square was the bustling center of the growing Italian American community in the city, one of the largest in Connecticut and rivalling New York and New Jersey for size and influence. 

 

Most of the immigrants came from Sorrento and Amalfi, and the subculture of that region was noticeable in the cuisine, the language, attitude, and dress.  Except for the cold winters, a walk through Wooster Square could easily have been confused with one in the old country. 

Maria had been one of the last to move out of the Square.  She held fiercely to her roots, and despite the high taxes, indifferent municipal services, and few original shops and cafes, she stayed on in the same apartment building her grandparents had lived in until their deaths.  Giuseppe worked in the lock factory as a laborer, and Anastasia took in laundry, had five children all of whom survived.  Both did their best to raise and educate all of them.  They were most proud of Roberto who became a priest, but they had room in their hearts for all their other children as well.

Maria, the daughter of Eddie, Giuseppe and Annie's son, and Samantha, his wife became a nurse at Yale New Haven hospital, married a medical assistant, and had two children of her own. 

Italian cuisine is considered by some as the best in the world.  Its use of fresh ingredients combined in perfect complementarity, seasoned with panache, and served with delight has made it delectably desirable for many throughout Europe and the Americas.

As might be expected, the cuisine lost some of its complexity and originality when it moved across the Atlantic to America.  The new immigrants were poor and the markets less abundant than in Italy, and so they had to do with less to serve more longer.  As a result, Italian American cooking became a garlicky, thick tomato sauce-based cuisine complemented by fried cutlets, bready meatballs, and bean dishes like pasta fazool.  Laborers from the New Haven factories came home to a a simple but ample spaghetti dinner, sometimes with meatballs, less often with pork or sausage. 

Much later and thanks to a newfound desire for foreign adventure and with the financial resources to do so, Americans discovered that Italian cuisine was more than spaghetti and meatballs.  When they ventured to the north of Italy and tasted another cuisine altogether - still Italian in inspiration, respect for ingredients, preparation, and display but with more Austrian and Tyrolian influences - they were surprised and vowed to try it at home.  

 

Eating in Southern Italy was even more of a revelation. While they recognized something of their own home cooking, they were surprised at the variety, the pairings, and the remarkably authentic tastes of seafood.  Somehow the real Sorrentini were able to feature the taste of fresh fish, clams, mussels, squid, and octopus and not smother it in an overpowering sauce. 

Easier said than done, and when Maria returned to New Haven, full of enthusiasm and energy to reproduce the remarkable meals she had eaten in Italy, and to try out her new culinary knowledge, she ended up with inedible sauces, faulty fish, and tasteless meat.  To compensate she reverted to her old ways, and added more olive oil and garlic and turned the initially classically simple Italian dishes into little more than the heavy duty 'gravy' and ziti of her childhood. 

Nevertheless, she was proud of herself for having been one of the few Wooster Square residents who had ventured out of New Haven, let alone to the Old Country.  She cooked up a storm, plated it, and photographed it for a social media site dedicated to the Italian American experience.  She thought she was really something, and every comment congratulating her on her ingenuity, taste, and presentation boosted her pride and enthusiasm. 

Yet a photo archive of her creations showed nothing but a lack of inspiration, a thrown-together mess of cheap bits from Costco and Walmart, subprime cuts, of meat, frozen fish, and frost-covered calamari.  One dish after another, each less appetizing and appealing than the one before, made the rounds.  Few members of the group wished to be honest about Maria's cooking - such harshness in a familial group like this one was simply not done - and the truth of the matter was that most of those looking in on Maria's kitchen produced no better.  Post after post displayed the most unattractive refrigerator-emptying potpourri. 

'I should write a cookbook', said Maria, 'online of course, and I will start next week'; but she found that she had little to write about.  All the fine touches of the cuisine of the Italian homeland had been lost in her pasty sauces and overdone meat, so she had nothing of panache or dramatic creativity to share. 

Yet, she persisted.  'I am a good cook', she said. 'Perhaps not yet a chef, but talented nevertheless' and with that new identity she persisted in her efforts.

Like anything else there can be artistry in cuisine, but without a master's touch dishes quickly become pedestrian, so despite the fact that Maria considered herself a chef-worthy cook she was nothing of the kind. 

Maria of course was not alone.  There are many American couples who spend hours in their newly redesigned kitchens, tending to six-burner Viking stoves, walk-in refrigerators, food islands, endless marble countertops under track lighting; and spend thousands on the most exotic ingredients available at specialty shops and online caterers.  

Some succeed in approximating the New American Cuisine of Alice Waters or Wolfgang Puck, California light, Asian fusion, farm-to-table freshness; but most, like Maria, found themselves tired and overmatched and resorted to their old home ways of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas.

Yet they never give up trying, for after all, they had felt comfortable in their new identity of cook.  The ballet of the kitchen, he and she a charming duet of mixing, chopping, arranging, and serving was their signature item, and reverting to anything less would be unthinkable.  Identity once established is hard to remove or replace.  As bad as these 'cooks' might be, they still wore their $200 aprons, cut and sliced with the finest Dehillerin Parisian knives, used only traditional Oaxaca fired ceramic bowls, and served the best Puligny-Montrachet in Baccarat crystal. 

None of this improved the food; but for the credulous invitees, all foodies themselves, the sound and light show covered for the quality of the meal and all were delighted with the experience. 

Identity is a perilous thing, and we live in an age where it is everything.  You are a political persona, an assumed character, an actor on the stage, a gay fetish on a Mardi Gras float, a revolutionary, an advocate, a reformer. Who you really are, what you were like as a child, created whole but with unexplored sectors of intelligence, beauty, creativity, and insight, is overlooked.  Assumed identity is all you have, as tarted up, postured, and posed as it might be. 

In a world of eight billion people we all need something of distinction, otherwise we will go to our graves unknown, unrecognized ciphers.  Everybody has some measure of intelligence, humor, principle, and emotional response, so there is nothing remarkable about that very ordinary confection; but if one has shown some style - shouting at the barricades, bedding a thousand men, or starring in the kitchen then there will be something to say at your funeral. 

Give Maria some slack.  Even in the kitchen there is room for identity, meaning, and self-esteem so lighten up on the snarky remarks about her creations.  It's more than the food after all, so give her that.