Mag Blog Radio Expressions Volume 1 Issue 4 | Page 19

Recipe

18
The town of my heritage is Montoro Inferiore in the Campania
region of southern Italy. In the early 1900's many of my family members
made new lives in America yet quite a few of my kin stayed behind and continued to be
farmers in the countryside of Avellino, not far from Mt Vesuvius. They are, and have
been for centuries, living sustainably, which we in America think is a new concept. Over
the years I have visited the family on several occasions, but one of my favorite trips was
when I learned to make the family recipe of gnocchi and experienced the true ritual of
dining in a traditional Italian family setting.
The clan had been anticipating my visit on an autumn day in 2001 and was making plans
about what the Sunday family feast would be. You see, when my family gets together, it
is not simply around a table, but a group of tables that are pushed together to go through
the kitchen, dining room, living room and out the front door. The meal lasts for hours
with a constant orchestra of screaming in Italian and flailing hands simply to make
conversation. When I arrived, the first question posed to me was what I wanted to eat. I
love gnocchi and knew they would make it like nowhere else. I pleaded for them to let
me help. I had to get in on the “secret.” I was thrilled when they invited me to join them
in the kitchen!
Bubbly chatter emanated from us as we prepared and kneaded the dough, then formed
and dropped hundreds of the little potato dumplings into an enormous pot over the gas
fire my uncle had lit in the cantina. This only heightened my excitement for the coming
meal. I feverishly scratched down lists of ingredients and processes as they created,
from memory, those little potato pillows which I so adore. Then using eggplant,
tomatoes, herbs, onions and other ingredients grown in their garden, they threw together
a twist on traditional puttenesca to spoon over the gnocchi. Delightful!

Connie Ruel: Italian Heritage
Listen to our interview with her on the episode, titled
Entertainment/The term “Orphan,” at www.blogtalkradio.
com/magblogradio

In the years since that visit, I have recreated this dish time and again, yet I will never
quite enjoy it as much as I did that fall day in the Italian countryside with my cousins,
aunts and uncles. To this day the dish still brings to mind the meaning of family.