Jul 12, 2021 3 min read

The other day I told someone that my big Italian family was going to have a reunion in Dormont Park at the end of July. My friend asked, “Will there be food?”

It was hard not to go full-blooded Italian on this dude, slap him upside the head and say, “What are you stupid or something?”

What my very WASPY friend didn’t know is that Italians bring food everywhere.

We are the bring-a-sandwich-to-the-DMV-you-might-get-hungry-standing-in-line-people.

Two years ago, a small contingent of this big Italian family tailgated a Pirate game. It looked like the entire contents of Costco were loaded into the back of my cousin’s pickup truck.

There were six different kinds of chips and dip, hot sausage, meatballs, cheeses, peppers, six different kinds of homemade cookies and a full sheet of cake. There was probably seven pounds of food per person. I’m surprised no one threw their back out after filling a plate.

Even Chinet has been known to collapse under the pressure of an Italian meal. That’s why you never see us in one of those commercials where the paper plates are guaranteed to take the weight. We skew the curve.

We spent more time unpacking and packing the food than we did eating it. We gave away half of the cake to a group of hungry teenagers who were passing by.

We are not food hoarders. Everything is fresh and ready to eat. There’s just a lot of it.

Trying to get anything in my aunt’s refrigerator is like playing Tetris. It all goes in “a certain way.” Sometimes you have to take something out and repackage it to get everything in.

The Italian people are the main reason that Tupperware is stackable.

Side note: Before Italians came to this country, no one even needed Tupperware. Hashtag: Facts!

We improvise if we don’t have enough plastic. For instance, there are six containers of Cool Whip in my refrigerator right now and none of them have Cool Whip in them.

We don’t say goodbye at the end of a party; we get out the plastic bowls and say, “What would you like to take home?”

I have three types of pickles in my refrigerator; sweet, sour and cornichons (tiny French ones, in case I have to make an emergency antipasto tray).

There are certain foods you will find in every Italian home in Pittsburgh. There are always jars of pickled things.

Tip o’ the day: Glass jars of pickled red peppers can be very decorative.

Lupini, Gardiniera and Pepperoncini may sound like an Italian law firm, but they are foods you will find in glass jars in many Italian refrigerators.

You will also find a loaf of bread (Mancini’s, Cellone’s, Mediterra or Breadworks). The loaves will be in a paper bag and they will not be pre-sliced. You will not find packaged, sliced bread in the kitchen of anyone whose name ends in a vowel.

The No. 1 thing you better find in that kitchen is a roll of TUMS.

Mangia.