Every culture has food traditions. Food is part of how we celebrate, comfort, make friends, communicate and so much more. Over the next few months the Growing Chefs! Staff and Board will be sharing the food traditions that we have at home. The first tradition we would like to share is from our Executive Director, Helen Stortini.
Helen Stortini - Growing Chefs! Executive Director: For my family, every Saturday night is pasta night. No one’s sure exactly when the tradition began, but my dad, John, recalls it starting with his three of his older sisters, Rita, Mary, and Valeria back in the 1950s in Northern Ontario. As the youngest of seven siblings, my dad’s sisters were much older and had families of their own by the time he was a school-aged boy. By then, it was just my dad and my poppa Giovanni at home—my grandmother Anna passed away when my father was very young. My poppa often worked nights so Saturday evenings found my dad crashing dinner at my one of my Auntie’s homes. Each of his sisters had their own (delicious) variation of a red sauce and meatballs. My mom, although not Italian, learned to make her own version of this sauce after my parents married and, in my entirely unbiased opinion, she makes the best, softest, most delicious meatballs I’ve ever eaten. Saturday night pasta carried on through my childhood, my teens, and continues to this day for my parents back in Sault Ste. Marie. Every Saturday morning, my mom gets up early, puts on a pot of sauce, makes those special meatballs, and then with my dad’s help, rolls out fresh pasta.
The Stortini siblings, circa 1971
In the last month, as my family has tried to connect more often with video calls during these isolating times (and are so grateful to have the privilege to do so), nearly seventy years after the Stortini Sister’s Family Pasta Night started, we’ve forged a new tradition and taken our family Pasta Night online. Every week, my mom and dad in the Soo, my sister, brother-in-law, and niece in Austin, and my son and husband here in Vancouver, gather around our tables and log online to dine. The menu in each home varies as we incorporate local and seasonal fare from our respective regions. Past menus include lasagna, tagliatelle with mushrooms, spaghetti with clams, and of course, red sauce and meatballs. But it’s always pasta. In these uncertain times, we may feel farther apart than ever, but we also feel closer than we’ve been in ages.
John with sisters Rita, Mary, Nita, and Val, circa 1999
Fun Fact: Stortini is actually a pasta shape and translates to “little crooked ones”. They are wee elbow shaped noodles that look like a tiny macaroni.
We would love to learn about the food traditions you have in your home (especially traditions that involve vegetables!). We hope you will comment below and tell us all about it.