In Honor of My Grandmother
By: Aria Nicolai
While making dinner with my Dad, I like to ask him to tell me stories about my Italian grandmother, lovingly known in our family as Mommom. According to my Dad, Mommom was a legendary chef in her day, and we often try to imitate the recipes she made when my Dad and his siblings were kids in the 50’s. Instead of consulting Martha Stewart or Julia Child for green bean recipes, we just ask WWMD (what would Mommom do?). Mommom sautéed green beans with some olive oil and served them al dente–which is fancy Italian speak for a little undercooked—so that’s what we do.
My Dad loves his mother. You can tell by that little smile that pulls at the corners of his mouth when he talks about her. You can hear the admiration in his voice, too. I don’t even have to look up from the garlic I’m chopping to know that. I am certain that there is no one in the world my Dad holds in higher regard than Mommom.
Mommom was born Ida —- in Italy in 1916, but her parents came to the United States when she and her brother Nicholas were children. They entered the United States through Ellis Island and the customs officials changed her name to Eda, because apparently it was easier and “more American” to say Eda (not quite sure what’s so difficult about the name Ida, but I digress). She married my Grandfather, Caesar Nicolai and they made a life together in Conshohocken Pennsylvania. They had four children, my Dad being the youngest.
My Grandfather had a large and thriving garden in the back of their home, which my Dad talks about all of the time. Pop—the name I call my Grandfather, who died before I was born—grew just about everything that would grow in Eastern Pennsylvania soil, and then Mommom cooked what he grew. The fruits and vegetables she didn’t use fresh, she canned for winter, Little House on the Prairie style. Canning was a lot of work, because each mason jar had to be sterilized in a pot of boiling water before Mommom could even begin the process. It was difficult for her, and my Dad tells me that one year she even refused to do it. Pop, with his infamous temper and stubbornness, responded by chopping down all of the fruit trees in the garden.
But Mommom was his equal in every way, and if anyone could match Pop’s stubbornness, it was her. Once my Dad got into a fistfight with an older boy, a bully. Mommom made him go to his house and apologize to him and his family. She knew in her bones there was an easy way and a right way, and she believed that the right way was always the best way.
Her life wasn’t easy; she came from a family of poor immigrants who couldn’t afford even the slightest of luxuries and ate copious amounts of hard crusted bread to fill their stomachs. To skip bread at a meal was a sin to Mommom, and when my Dad ate lunch meat without bread, she declared him a “la conge.” (My Dad has no idea what la conge means, but it was the way she said it that made it a glaring insult—gluten free people beware). It was during the Great Depression, when my Great-Grandfather Hannible was injured working on the railroad, that Mommom had to leave school and work in a factory to help put the bread on the table. So no meal went without bread; it was dipped in coffee during breakfast, sandwiched around leftovers for lunch, and sat at the heart of the table for dinner. Bread was her centerpiece, the crowning jewel of every meal.
Even as an adult, she worked hard to keep her family together and run her household. There were no dishwashers or blenders or laundry machines in the 50’s, not that my Grandparents could’ve afforded them if there were. So Mommom did the whole family’s laundry by hand and hung it to dry in clotheslines in the backyard. Her efforts were often undermined by Pete, Pop’s pet crow. (Why he had a crow, I have no idea). Pete would unclip the clothespins with his beak, sending the clean clothes tumbling to the ground. Much later, after my Grandfather died, Mommom picked herself up and got herself a job working in a school. She learned how to drive and moved to a smaller house. This house had an electric stove, not a gas stove, which Mommom famously hated.
The Great Depression tainted my Grandmother, who would not let any of her four children leave the table unless their plates were clean. This was bad news for my Dad when Mommom made stuffed eggplant. He hates eggplant, and the even the thought of it makes him gag. But as far as I can tell, eggplant was the only thing she made that he didn’t like. Her meals were spectacular, and she made everything homemade like any bona fide Italian woman: pasta, gnocchi, and pastries.
Unfortunately, by the time I was out of the butter pasta and carrot sticks phase and old enough to appreciate bona fide Italian cooking, arthritis had taken over Mommom’s hands, and she could no longer cook and bake as she did. But when my Dad was growing up, she made elaborate dishes. For Christmas Eve, the Nicolai family and friends were treated to the customary “Feast of the Seven Fishes”, a customary Italian-American holiday dish. Also known as La Vigilia, this spread featured baccala, calamari, shrimp, smelts, eel, anchovies, and whiting. No disrespect to Mommom, but I’m honestly not that sad that I missed out on that one.
It must have been hard for Mommom to lose the use of her hands. Those hands did so much for her. They turned the wheels of her pasta maker and kneaded dough and cleaned and folded and lovingly peeled oranges for her children while they watched cartoons on the tiny television after dinner. When Pop did renovations to their house to add room, Mommom’s hands carried wood and stone. I think that a person’s hands can tell you a lot about that person. Mommom’s hands were small and worn, and they had brown sunspots on the backs and calluses on the palms. But they never shook when she placed them on her lap or on the table. Just like Mommom herself, her hands never wavered.
When my Dad was two and still in diapers, he ran away from home. This was a story Mommom always told at dinner parties. She had left the laundry room door open and her youngest son had snuck through and toddled out of the yard and down the block. She received a call from a friend on the next street over and couldn’t believe her ears—her son had run away! In 1958, when my Dad was ten years old, she gave him a Saint Christopher necklace. Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers. “To keep you from getting lost,” she told him. He wore that necklace for most of his life.
Today, he gave it to me. Its very worn and tarnished, but I can barely make out the words engraved on the back. It reads “Mom to Caesar: Christmas ’58.”
Mommom passed away on April 22 of last year, 2016. She was 100 years and 1 month old, exactly to the day. We had a big party in her honor earlier last year, and I remember her exclaiming, “I can’t believe I’m 100!” as if her own tenacity surprised her.
She was strong, stubborn, smart, and kind–everything that a woman should be. She didn’t have much but she did the best with what she had. I often think about my Grandmother and what she might have become had she had the same sheltered upbringing, the same luxuries, and the same opportunities that I am lucky enough to have. If Mommom could’ve gone to college, what would she have studied? If she had enough money, where would she have traveled? If she could’ve had a career, what would she have chosen?
Part of me wishes I could’ve had the chance to ask her. But part of me is glad I didn’t, because the fact that she didn’t have an “exciting” life by 21st century standards in no way lessens her as a person. In fact, I find her life fascinating, and I love listening to my Dad talk about her.
Sometimes I get so caught up in what I want to be that I forget where I come from. I am the Granddaughter of a woman who sacrificed her own education to support her family, whose hands tirelessly worked to run a household, who stood her ground in an argument, who believed in doing what is right even when it’s difficult. There is nothing in the world that money could buy that could make me prouder than to have her blood running through my veins.
Rest in peace Mommom.