L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2019 LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers,  this patriotic month of July I want to share some Military Mirth and Food for thought with you. In World War I, Italy allied with the United States. My father was in the Italian army (the 39th Reggimento) and fought against the Austriaci (Austrians). My fa- ther did not read me bedtime sto- ries, but was quite a raconteur, and when I asked, "What did you do in the war, Papa?" he had lots of little stories to tell. While my young classmates were at home asking to hear "The Three Little Pigs," "Little Red Riding Hood," or "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," I wanted to hear the story of the "Ferran- tina Ferrantina" train station mix- up (he got off hundreds of miles away); the "Cigarette Story" (a foolish buddy lights up a ciga- rette on the dark night, revealing their position to the Austriaci who aim a barrage of bullets their way, fortunately missing); and "La prima notte a Napoli non si poteva dormire" (our first night in Naples, we couldn't sleep). What do you think kept them awake? In was circa 1916 in the Basil- icata region, and these new re- cruits were from hill towns sur- rounding Montescaglioso where they had been ordered to report. From Montescaglioso, they went by horse-drawn cart to la ferrovia to await their first train ride. Arriving at their Napoli army barracks in the early evening, they noticed that there was light inside the barracks, despite the absence of lanterns and can- dles. Turns out these barracks were equipped with the latest (in 1916) technology - electric light bulbs, and wall switches to turn them on or off. The reason "La prima notte a Napoli non si poteva dormire" was because these new Italian recruits spent the night taking turns switching the lights on and off, watching the "light show" and were much too excited to sleep. My father received his elabo- rately engraved Foglio di Con- gedo (discharge papers) on Dec. 18, 1919 in Taranto. "Durante il tempo passato sotto le armi ha tenuto buona condotta ed ha servito con fedeltà ed onore". In other words, a good conduct hon- orable discharge, he was immu- nized, given a clothes pack and severance pay of 200 liras - due- cento lire. *** This "army barracks" story takes place during World War II in 1942, at Champ Swift Col- orado. Ben Savelli told this story about a USO dance. "After the dance, I finish up getting acquainted with this frill and she gives me her address and phone number and tells me to call her over the weekend. I could hardly wait to tell Vince in the barracks about my good luck!... I ask the girl if maybe we could walk over to where the bus is, thinking maybe I could get few smooches... When it came to actual experience, I was a babe in the woods... Finally, I grab her and five her my best kiss, then another one. Then, she said, "I'll see you over the weekend. Call me up." "OK, now I get to the barracks and Vince is talking to some of the guys and I tell him. "Wait un- til I tell you what happened to me! I met this girl, etc, etc, and then I told Vince about this girl who let me kiss her and then kiss again and the whole bit...and Vince says, "Holy smoke, Ben! She might have been like a camp follower, some of those prosti- tutes that go around camps and give all the troops diseases... it could even be enemy tactics! that's all you need!" Wow, I could see my parents and all my friends in San Francisco and what they would think if I had a communi- cable disease! So Vince says, "Do you have anything in your foot locker that can kill the germs?" I said my mother had sent me some Italian salami and I had some Ghirardelli chocolate... (now Gi- rardelli chocolate was simply un- available at any price). So Vince says, "Let's eat some of that and maybe we can kill the germs." So that's what we did-we ate the whole thing! "When it was all over, Vince told me it was all a big joke to get me to get the Italian salami and Ghirardelli chocolate out of my locker... we laughed and I made believe I knew it all the time-which, of course, I didn't... Oh well, sometimes it doesn't pay to know too much!" *** Bread and Onions,  (pane e cipolla) is what my father told me he often had for breakfast and lunch when he was growing up because his father's morte in guerra meant money was scarce, thus he had little patience for any American born finicky eaters. In grade school, the class- rooms were usually decorated with posters generously donated to teachers by the National Dairy Council and I often wondered how my father had ever made it to adulthood without his six glasses of milk a day to build strong bones and some cereals, the breakfast of champions. Well, dear Readers, many years later, while reading a book authored by Jonny Bowden, titled The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth I found out that "pane e cipolla" was a breakfast of cham- pions too, early Italian style. *** Onions Help Build Strong Bones At least two important studies show that onions help build strong bones. In one published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chem- istry, a compound in onions in- habited the activity of the cells (osteoclasts) that break down bones. The popular drug Fos- amax works in a similar way, but onions have no side effects, un- less you count the need to have breath mint before kissing some- one! Onions belong to the allium family, which also includes leeks, garlic, and shallots. They contain a whole pharmacy of compounds with health benefits, including thiosulfinates, sulfides, sulfox- ides, and other smelly sulfur compounds. But those same smelly compounds offer a lot of nutrition bang for the relatively small price of a little eye water- ing. *** There are no two ways about it: onions are cancer-fighting food. In a number of impressive published studies, the consump- tion of onions (and other mem- bers of the allium vegetable fam- ily) demonstrated protective effects against stomach cancer. And in one study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, eating onions (as well as other members of its family like garlic, scallions, chives, and leeks) significantly lowered the risk for prostate cancer. ***

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