Published: January 14, 2008 11:46 pm            

Now that’s Sicilian: Author shares family’s recipes and traditions

GLOUCESTER, Mass. — When she was growing up in Gloucester, Jessica Linquata’s life revolved around food and family traditions.

Often they were one and the same — like “pasta on the table,” an annual celebration of the rural Sicilian practice of serving pasta directly on the table without plates during the busy harvest season.

Now Linquata is sharing stories of her family traditions, along with old family recipes in her new cookbook, “Ennnjoyyyy ... Don’t Forget to Bend Your Elbows!”

The idea for the book came after she moved to New York when she graduated from Salem State College in 2006 as a theater major hoping to break into the entertainment business and recalled all those delicious meals with her family in Gloucester.

“I started collecting family recipes and decided to put them together for my sisters (Vanessa and Rebecca),” said Linquata, who jokes that “they barely know their way around a toaster.”

The book is full of Linquata family recipes, some of which were passed down by her great-great-grandparents — from side dishes (“Grandma Linquata’s stuffed artichokes”) to soups (Grandma Aiello’s aghiotta by way of Aunty Grace Favazza).

Along with the recipes, Linquata serves up often humorous commentary on each recipe, tips and stories about her family, including how her family adapted the “pasta on the table” tradition, using a disposal plastic tablecloth to cover the dining table.

While “this tradition is pretty normal to my family and me,” Linquata writes, “we get very excited when a newcomer comes, like a boyfriend or girlfriend ... We explain what is going to happen, but they don’t actually believe it till they participate in it firsthand.”

After compiling the recipes and writing the stories, Linquata, 25, found an online publishing house, Blurb.com, that prints hard- or softcover copies on demand.

“Working with Blurb was a treat,” Linquata said.

She’s working on two other cookbooks, “Daliahdi, the Cookies,” with recipes from the Sicilian and Swedish branches of the family tree, and “Cooking Against the Grain,” with recipes for gluten-free foods developed by Linquata after she was diagnosed with celiac disease.

“Ennnjoyyyy ... Don’t Forget to Bend Your Elbows” is available at www.blurb.com/bookstore at a cost of $28, softcover, and $44, hardcover.



Dan Dourian writes for the Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times. E-mail him at gt_reporter@ecnnews.com



Excerpt: The story of pasta on the table

Sicilian farmers would go out into the fields during the harvest and gather up the grapes or citrus fruit, whatever the crops may have been, while the women would prepare the fresh pasta and tomato sauce throughout the day.

When it was time to have lunch or dinner, the women would scrub down big long wooden boards till they were clean enough to eat from them. The women would then lay the boards across wooden horses to create a table.

Once the set-up was finished, they would call the men in from the fields and have them sit at the makeshift table as the women came out of the kitchen with big pots of pasta and sauce.

They would then proceed to dump the pasta onto the boards and pour the sauce over it. All the men were given forks and they would simply pull a helping of pasta from the heap ...

As time passed this tradition went from a necessary feeding tactic the women used to a celebration. When there was a good harvest. they would eat “harvest style” to honor the old tradition.

— From “Ennnjoyyyy ... Don’t Forget to Bend Your Elbows!”, by Jessica Linquata





Recipe: Pasta Milanese

One of the most famous Sicilian dishes you will hear of is Pasta con Sardine. This is our family’s twist on it; don’t forget the Fried Moudega, that’s the best part.



1 medium onion — chopped.

Anchovies — reserve the oil.

1 can of tomato paste or tomato puree

Sweet parsley leaves

Sugar — optional; if too tart add at the end

Moudega and olive oil

(Moudega: bread crumbs flavored with flat-leaf parsley, Pecorino Romano cheese, salt and pepper and garlic.)



Fry the onions and anchovies in the reserved oil. Let the anchovies melt down and onions become translucent. Add in the tomato puree and let it cook for about 30 minutes, and then add the parsley. Do not add salt until the end, after you have tasted it. For the fried moudega, cover the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil on medium/high heat, cover with the bread crumbs and watch carefully until golden brown. Serve on top of pasta and sauce.

— From “Ennnjoyyyy ... Don’t forget to bend your elbows!”, by Jessica Linquata

        

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