The Manicotti Incident

When I was in the second grade, we were given a penmanship evaluation in which we were asked to write about our favorite food. Mine was manicotti, but I had no idea how to spell it. So, I asked my teacher.

“How do you spell mannicutt?”

“Huh? What is mannicutt?” she asked looking both baffled and entertained.

“You know, mannicutt, it’s a pasta filled with cheese and covered with sauce,” I explained with a culinary zest that must have seemed highly unusual for an 8-year-old.

Finally, the clouds parted and she laughed as she said, “Oh, you mean manicotti!”

I clearly remember myself thinking 'What the heck is mann-ee-cot-ee?' It is my very first memory in which I realized that the words I heard spoken at home were Italian. Only when I began my formal study of Italian did I realize that much of what I heard growing up was heavily affected by a Southern Italian accent.

Not long after the manicotti incident, I began to realize that certain words from my personal vocabulary needed to be weeded out. Yet, in privacy I might lament the slowness of my computer with an aan-gora, which is ancora in proper Italian, or maybe mutter mannaggia which expresses frustration with no direct translation. Often when trying to remember the name of someone or something, I might give up and refer to it as come zi chiam or rather come si chiama, which for me really expresses the sentiment of “whatchamacallit.”

Because most Italians in the United States are from Southern Italy, their words, foods and customs are regarded by most Americans as simply Italian. The irony is that Southern Italians have long faced prejudiced views, particularly from regions in the North. It was only when the pugliesi, napoletani, calabresi, abruzzesi, and siciliani were abroad that they were able to adopt a national identity as Italians, in spite of their vast differences.

Growing up, many of the regional differences seemed pretty funny. A game of cards between my grandparents would go on for hours until a Calabrian curse word would inevitably erupt from my grandfather, which caused my Campanian grandmother to get angry at him for using that filthy Calabrese word in the house. He would stand up, start putting the cards back in their box while muttering, “She thinks her Italian is so great just because she’s from provincia di Salerno.” Nana would look at me, smile, place her palms together lightly and say, “Mannaggia, mannaggia.”

The idea of the Southern Italian as Italian has made its way full circle to Italy. While living in Florence, I often saw tour companies drop busloads of Americans off at restaurants where they were served heaping plates of spaghetti and meatballs drowning in red sauce. Meals like this are inventions of the Italian-American table. Just as Italian immigrants had to learn to work with different foods to create the meals of their homeland, they also had to improvise with language to suit the communities of dialect speakers who were now considered part of one Italian-American community.

So, even if you feel ready to declare fluency in Italian, ask yourself if you can know the difference between prezzemolo and petrosino. In the coming articles, I will share my experiences navigating Southern Italy with all of its linguistic and cultural quirks.

About the Author: Danielle Oteri shares her experiences navigating Southern Italy with all of its linguistic and cultural quirks.