INITIATING THE NEW IN-LAW.

INITIATING THE NEW IN-LAW. The Mulberry Street musical features a scene in which the new “Muddy-gan” boy friend is expected to eat enormous quantities of Italian food. Kids, I’ve been there. On Christmas Eve, in an Italian family, there is a seafood dinner with a large number of courses. A friend from upstate New York writes us that: “I have heard many Upstate stories from Italians about the 7 (or more) kinds of fish that had to be gone through before they dug into the pastas and the cheeses” and that “My schoolboy chum…told me that he was recognized as a man after the Christmas dinner where he finally ate more than his father.”
Your grandmother Luzzo prepared nine or ten courses on Christmas Eve, and of course I was observed carefully to see whether I was eating an appropriate amount of each course. I think I would ordinarily be up to an eating challenge, especially when I was young. What made things difficult was the first course, which was calamari (which I love). Your grandmother was especially proud of the six pounds of calamari which she had prepared three different ways. A good showing by the group was required. But I was one of only three people who would eat squid (your mother had not yet seen the light). That’s two pounds a person if you took “Mangia” literally.