Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 19, No. 3 Toni F
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Ursinus College Digital Commons @ Ursinus College Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine Pennsylvania Folklife Society Collection Spring 1970 Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 19, No. 3 Toni F. Fratto David C. Winslow Leslie P. Greenhill Elizabeth Clarke Kieffer Don Yoder See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag Part of the American Art and Architecture Commons, American Material Culture Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Cultural History Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons, Folklore Commons, Genealogy Commons, German Language and Literature Commons, Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons, History of Religion Commons, Linguistics Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits oy u. Recommended Citation Fratto, Toni F.; Winslow, David C.; Greenhill, Leslie P.; Kieffer, Elizabeth Clarke; Yoder, Don; and Hollyday, Guy Tilghman, "Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 19, No. 3" (1970). Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine. 40. https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/40 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Pennsylvania Folklife Society Collection at Digital Commons @ Ursinus College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Ursinus College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Toni F. Fratto, David C. Winslow, Leslie P. Greenhill, Elizabeth Clarke Kieffer, Don Yoder, and Guy Tilghman Hollyday This book is available at Digital Commons @ Ursinus College: https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/40 SPRING, 1970 Contributors to this Issue MRS. TONI F. FRATTO, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Halloween In Pennsylvania," appeared in the Key is a graduate student in the Folklore and Folklife Pro stone Folklore Quarterly, XIV: 3 (Fall 1969), 122-123. gram at the University of Pennsylvania. Her article on Italian Traditional Cookery in Philadelphia is the ELIZABETH CLARKE KIEFFER, now of Penney first of a new series for Pennsylvania Folklife on Ethnic Farms, Florida, was for many years Reference Librar Cookery in Pennsylvania. ian, Fackenthal Library, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The author of many articles, DAVID C. WINSLOW, Oswego, New York, teaches lectures, and studies on Pennsylvania German history English and Folklore at the State University of New and genealogy, she has produced the standard biogra York at Oswego, and is finishing his Ph.D. dissertation phy, Henry Harbaugh: Pennsylvania Dutchman (Penn in Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylva sylvania German Society, Volume 55, 1950) . Her nia. His latest published article is "Bishop E. E. Everett article in this issue deals with a hitherto unknown and Some Aspects of Occultism and Folk Religion in chapter in the history of the 18th Century emigration Negro Philadelphia," K eyst one Folklore Quarterly, from the continent of Europe to the British Colonies, XIV: 2 (Summer 1969), 59-80. an official protest by the emigrants over bad treatment by the shipping companies and their captains. DR. LESLIE P. GREENHILL, State College, Penn sylvania, is Vice President for Resident Instruction at DR. GUY TILGHMAN HOLLYDAY, Bryn Mawr, the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, is a native of Maryland who is teaching Pennsylvania, and Director of the American Archive German at the University of Pennsylvania. His article of the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica, the series in this issue, on the inscriptions of the Fraktur Wall of documentary films issued by the Institute for Sci Charts of the Ephrata Cloister, is one of a series of entific Film at the University of Gottingen in West textual studies of the High German language heritage Germany. An article by Dr. Greenhill, describing one in Pennsylvania which we have been concerned to of the Pennsylvania films in the encyclopedia, "A Film present to the readers of Pennsylvania Folklife. SPRING 1970 Vol. XIX, No.3 ED ITOR: Dr. Don Yoder EOITORI AL COMM ITT EE: D r. Mac E. Barri ck Contents LeRoy Gensler D r. Henry Gl ass ie Dr. John A. Hostetl er 2 Cooking in Red and White David J. Hufford TONI F. FRATTO Dr. Phil Jack Dr. Hilda A. Kring Dr. Mauri ce A. Mook 16 Trade Cards, Catalogs, and Invoice Heads Dr. Earl F. Robacker DAVID C. W INSLOW Dr. Alta Schrock 24 The Encyclopaedia Cinematographica SUBSCR IPTION R ATES: and Folklife Studies LESLIE P. GR EE NHILL $4.00 a year in the United States and Canada. Single copies $1. 50. 27 The Cheese Was Good ELIZAB ET H CLARK E KIEFFER MSS AND PH OTOGRAP HS: The EditOr will be glad to consider 30 Notes and Documents: Eighteenth-Century MSS and photOgraphs sent with a Letters from Germany view to publication. When unsuit Edited by DON YODER able, and if accompanied by return postage, every care will be exer 34 The Ephrata Wall-Charts and Their Inscriptions cised tOward their return, although GUY TILGHM AN H OLLYD AY no responsibility for their safety is assumed. 47 Itinerants: Peddlers, Drovers, Wagoners, Gypsies, Tramps PEN N 5 Y L V A N I A FOLKLIFE, Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 15 Spring , 19 70, Vol. 19, No. 3, pub lished quarterly by the Pennsyl Contributors to this Issue vania Folklife Society, Inc., lan (Inside Front Cover) caster, Pennsylvania. Subscriptions and business correspondence: Box Engravings of Pennsylvania Mills 1053, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Edi (Inside Back Cover) torial correspondence: Dr. Don Yoder, College Hall , Box 36, Uni versity of Pennsylvania, Philadel phia, Pennsylvahia 19104. Contents copyrighted. COVER: Pizzelle Irons, used by Italian-Am ericans to bake waffles, combine Entered as second class matter designs of various sorts. This one has the fl em d e lis and a coat ar Lancasrer, Pennsylvania. of arms containing playing card symbolism. Cooking In• RED and By TONI F. FRATTO T raditional cookery, it appears, is a fairly tenacious element of culture. The six Italian-Americans who very kindly a ll owed me to take hours of their time in inter views are all highly acculturated people. They live in thoroughl y American homes, dress in modern American fashion, send their children to public or parochial schools (run largely by an Irish clergy, they say) and even to coll ege. Four of the six speak Italian only brokenly, as a secondary language. Yet they remember cooking and- for the majority of dishes-still cook an amazing variety of definitely Italian foods. The changes they have made in the traditional cookery a re fairly obvious: American tastes look down on such things as organ meats, so these are seldom cooked anymore; some things, such as fresh blood or lamb's head are diffi cult to get in American markets and are therefore seld om on the tabl es; in general, Americans prefer slightly bl and foods, so some Italian dishes are now Josie A vellino making Raccala Stew. The salt fish, usually cod, is soaked for three days to remove thE made with less garlic and with light oils rather than salt, then cooked with onions, raisins, olives, and OliVE the rich olive oil ; perhaps most importantly, the chil oil. Stuffed artichokes are co oking in the covered pOI dren demand American foods, so Italian cookery is to the left. Fish dishes are very widespread in ltaliar. reduced to a two-or- three night a week event. cookery, both for everyday cookery and holidays. But the recipes are still alive. No one had to search Christmas Eve, for instance, is a " fish night" wher. their memories for long-forgotten dishes. M ost of these fish specialties are served. foods are cooked today, not as often as they used to be, but quite often enough to remain vital, and those few dishes no longer prepared (for instance, no one makes broth with chicken heads anymore) are remembered vividly and with a vague regret for their absence. All of these foods are traditional. I say this with a fair assurance, because all six informants learned their cooking by direct instruction and example from their mothers, mothers-in-law, and friends. N ot one had, or had ever read, an I tali an cookbook. Their recipes are maintained solely in their memories and in their hands. In fact, onl y one of the six could write or spell in Italian ; none of the others could even indicate the spelling or the I talian (as opposed to dialect ) pronun ciation of their words. These dishes have been handed down orall y and traditionally, without much change, fo r at least several generations, which fact is, I think, a fairly good indicator of their traditional nature. But what level or sector of tradition do they come from? T his is just abou t impossible to establish def initely, as these people's knowledge of their past does not extend back very far. One of the elderly ladies, Mrs. M antone, li ved on a farm in a small vill age which 2 from the older generation, from parents, and onl y sec ondarily from friends. H ow much of the coincidence is due to common influences in America and how much is due to a common culture area in Italy, I can only guess. It is my hypothesis that the general area of main land sou thern Italy (Abruzzi, Calabria, etc.) had a common tradition of cookery. THE PEOPLE J. Mrs. Florence Esposit o Fratto Mrs. Fratto is a second-generation Italian-American. She learned to cook from her mother, who came from a town called "Basilrigad," some place in Abruzzi (she does not know where and isn't sure of the pronunciation of the town ) when she was a young girl. Mrs. Fratto's childhood, then, was spent entirely in America, and her cooking, admittedly, has been influenced by American tastes and the tastes of other I talian friends.