My Mom is part Italian and it was the dominant culture in our house growing up. I learned a great deal about old fashioned Southern Italians and thew this together one day to amuse myself, in part based on my mom
Southern Italian Female Virtues
- You house is as clean as it is like when company is coming for a holiday party (Christmas, Thanksgiving, First Communion, Confirmation, Birthday) all of the time. The only difference being that when company is really coming you put out the special “only for company” (and sometimes holiday themed) towels in the bathroom and bowls of snacks on the coffee table (on normal days leaving snack food out like that is a sin).
- The only exceptions are
i. when a room is in disorder because you are cleaning the carpet with one of those rental machines from the supermarket (though you really should own your own upright version like my mom does)
ii. you moved everything out of the room so that you can scrub or polish the floor by hand
iii. everything is out of your kitchen cabinets and is (neatly) on the kitchen tables and counters while you clean the insides of the kitchen cabinets
iv. you took down all of the curtains and blinds to wash by hand (WOOLITE® for curtains – dried on the line, it’s not there to be pretty, you can’t put everything in the dryer you know -, and a bathtub full of hot water and ammonia and a good scrubbing sponge for the blinds). Note that if you could put the curtains in the washing machine and dryer, that they are by definition, not curtains. They are garbage that hangs in your window.
v. You have taken everything out of the breakfront that contains the dishes you got for your wedding but have not and will never use (they are for show, unless maybe the Pope shows up – and he’d better be an Italian Pope, not French, Polish, German or whatever) for their yearly wash and dry - by hand; you so much as look at that dishwasher and you might as well just throw each dish out the window since you care so little about them. Besides, as a rule, none of these “for show” wedding dishes and crystal sets are dishwasher safe. These are nice dishes. Nice means delicate means wash and dry gently by hand. You already have a set of dishwasher safe everyday dishes and glasses. “Breakfront china” as the nice dishes are also known, being dishwasher safe is a middle finger to your housekeeping skills from the person/s who gave them to you – if Italian - (usually your own or the groom’s family) and you may spend the better part of your life trying to change that perception of you or it a gross breach of etiquette if given by non-Italians, reflecting badly on the giver on several levels, not on you. They might as well have given you tin plates and mason jars to put in the breakfront. Better that they give you nothing and they just came up to you at the wedding receiving line and slapped your face so at least you know what they really think of you.
- The above giving of dishwasher safe breakfront china never happens. If the world tuned upside down and it would somehow happen, you are allowed to talk about it angrily, in detail, to anyone who is a guest in your home or to whom you are related or close friends, or to people see regularly like your butcher shop (you didn’t think that you’d be buying meat at a supermarket like you don’t care what your family eats, did you?). You are also allowed to talk about it with intensity and verb tenses as if it just happened yesterday, no matter how long ago it happened (what’s forty or fifty years to an insult like that). You are allowed to talk about it in this manner until they put you in the ground. If older and widowed you may and probably should cry just a little when you tell the story.
- You cannot tell this story or complain to the people who foolishly gave you dishwasher safe breakfront china. The entire community already now knows that they are cheap (a close second to “lazy” usually reserved for men or whole families) and that black mark will be carried by their grandchildren. You are as nice and polite as you always were when you see them, and always try to throw in a thank-you or mention of the breakfront china when you see them. When they are not present, spit on the ground after saying their names.
- It is, however, considered just good manners to forgive them everything with the help of the Grace of the Madonna as you kneel in front of their casket at their wake, however long that takes to happen. Make sure you tell everyone about the forgiving, and the Madonna. Tears can well up in your eyes and your voice quaver here too. If only you had forgiven Angela sooner, and now it’s too late. Your crying can increase at this point so other people hear and will gather around you to console you. Make her funeral about you. Serves her right for those cheap dishes.
vi. You have taken all of the crystal off of your dining room chandelier to clean each piece.
vii. You are dead (or close enough to be given last rites)
There are other cases, but use the examples above whenever a question arises.
Rule of thumb: a mess is allowed only when it is an unavoidable part of the cleaning process
- You should be able to put together a meal for around five unexpected guests with no prior notice at all times. With some families, friends drop by often or sons/daughters bring friends home without much notice. Imagine what the parents of the friends of your future children would say if they heard that you gave their kids a box or bag of something to munch on without so much as putting it on a plate/in a bowl and making them sit at the kitchen table like people when they eat.
- You are not a putana, nor do you dress like one.
