I remember a parade of rich lasagnas, cannelloni, pastas with green or red sauce, fresh veal and chicken cooked in homemade Marsala wine, goat’s cheese and provolone on freshly baked bread, and olives in spicy oil – all accompanied by a river of yellow and amber wines from local grapes.Dom McKenzie/The Globe and Mail
Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
When the U.S. Army gave me a week's leave in the spring of 1955, my Chicago relatives told me to go and visit our family in southern Italy.
I was not pleased, of course: A young man of 23 doesn't want to use his first free time in Europe to visit relatives. But as I was the only son of an immigrant father, I knew I'd never live it down if I didn't go.
My dad had come to the United States with his mother and four siblings in 1907, when he was 5. I was the first of our family to return to Europe, so I was naturally appointed to visit the Colagrossi clan in their hometown of San Marco in the province of Foggia in southeastern Italy.
Making the long trip south, I rode the train from Stuttgart, where I was performing with the Seventh Army Orchestra, to Rome; from Rome to Naples, and from Naples to the city of Foggia. From there, a local driver took me up and down the rugged mountain roads of the rich grape-growing region to San Marco, perched on a mountaintop.
When the car dropped me off, I walked into the heart of the little village. I asked in my minimal, broken Italian for my great-aunt Michelina Conte. Impressed by my windbreaker and sneakers, villagers surrounded me, jabbering in an impossible-to-understand dialect, trying to figure out who I was.
Finally, a man said: "Ahhh …" He smiled, embraced me and took me to a house where a large family was ecstatic to meet a relative from Chicago.
Three days of nonstop eating and drinking followed. I remember a parade of rich lasagnas, cannelloni, pastas with green or red sauce, fresh veal and chicken cooked in homemade Marsala wine, goat's cheese and provolone on freshly baked bread, and olives in spicy oil – all accompanied by a river of yellow and amber wines from local grapes.
Naturally, we took dozens of photographs of each other as we walked around, trading stories and visiting the family cemetery.
Finally, they saw me off on a local bus to Foggia, which met the train to Naples, and I carried on to Stuttgart. I developed the photographs and mailed them to Chicago. Family obligation fulfilled!
But my father promptly wired back: "You went to the wrong San Marco."
They had forgotten to tell me there are two San Marcos in the province of Foggia: San Marco in Lamis and San Marco la Catola. The people in San Marco in Lamis had thought I was an offshoot of their many relatives in Chicago, a good enough reason to celebrate.
"You have to go back!" my relatives in Chicago insisted.
The next year, I made the demanding trip again – this time to San Marco la Catola. The whole town was waiting to greet me, the important Colagrossi dignitary. Some of their smiling, sun-tanned faces reminded me of my sister, Gloria, and other relatives.
Out of the crowd swaggered a short man with a hooked nose and sharp chin, a pipe gripped tightly in his teeth. He wore a dusty and tattered American-style overcoat.
"What seems to be the problem here?" he asked in accented English. He shot out his hand like a businessman. "Frank S. Oliver's the name."
What luck, given my poor skills in Italian. This born-and-raised San Marco man had lived in New York for several years. Frank was now the village hero: Anyone who wanted to talk to me or invite me over went through him, and he milked it. His favourite response was, "Before I answer that question, we need more wine and cake."
One of the delights of my visit was listening to Frank tell stories that recklessly blended myth and reality. He claimed that he'd played oboe in Toscanini's first orchestra in New York, and that the maestro kept him on because he liked the way Frank, a trained barber, shaved him.
On the balcony of my little room, Frank recounted his near-discovery of a hidden treasure. Pointing down the mountain, he said: "Ya see that Roman arch down there? Well, one night I had a dream there was gold buried under that arch. I woke my brother, got a pick, a shovel and a lantern, and went down there, and we dug and we dug, and all of a sudden, bang! We hit somethin' hard. A chest! We dug around it and pulled it out. It had a lock on it, but it was broken!"
His eyes squinted. "Some other som-na-bitch had the same dream, got there before us and got all the gold!"
I laughed until tears streamed down my face.
Before leaving Italy, I confirmed one other thing: the secret to my grandmother's tomato sauce. The villagers would quick-fry a few pork chops and let them stew in tomato sauce all day to enrich the flavor.
So now I make what I consider to be the best pasta sauce around, though my wife says it tastes like tar.
Michael Colgrass lives in Toronto.