History on a Plate: Three Generations at the Table

By Jenna Dagenhart

The Crispi family gathers around the Sunday supper. Photo: Jenna Dagenhart.

Every Sunday, the Crispi family redefines what it means to eat frozen food.  Their Staten Island kitchen stays stocked year-round with homemade Italian favorites, such as pasta made from scratch by Mrs. Crispi and her mother.

“At the Savo family’s annual tomato canning festival are, from left: Alexandra Crispi, Victoria Crispi, Savino Savo, Liliana Savo, Michael Savo Jr., Sam Crispi, Michael Savo, Michele Savo, Natalina Crispi, Richard Savo, Sam Crispi Sr., Deborah Savo, Savino Crispi and Christina Savo.” -Staten Island Advance, September 2012

Mr. and Mrs. Cripsi are both second-generation Italians.  They have four children: 22-year-old Savino, 14-year-old Alex, 15-year-old Victoria, and 6-year-old Sammy.  Their parents, the children’s grandparents, emigrated from Sicily and Frosinone, a small town outside of Rome. And the family recipes live on in Sunday suppers, which the grandparents normally attend when they are not in Florida or Italy for the winter.

During the summers, there is the annual tomato canning festival.   The six Crispis team up with extended family to slice up and serve their secret sauce recipe, as featured by the “Staten Island Advance” newspaper.  Everyone helps.  And everyone enjoys the results waiting in front of them on the sauce-free white tablecloth.   Even the youngest family members have mastered the pasta eating utensil swirl.

In addition to defrosting the island-famous frozen tomato sauce and cooking the pasta from scratch, the family sets a full table of other treats: prosciutto and mozzarella from local markets like Buono, a garden salad with homemade olive oil dressing, meatballs the size of golf balls, warm sauce served in a white pouring pot, fresh baguettes sliced and ready to be dipped into leftover sauce, a multi-colored assortment of olives and cheeses partitioned in a platter, a fresh blueberry cheesecake from a local bakery for dessert, and fennel stalks to cleanse the palate between dinner and dessert. The light green, layered vegetable is slightly crunchy and helps eliminate bad breath from garlic-heavy dishes.

To wash everything down, the four kids drink flat water and the parents sip homemade wine that is slightly lighter than red wine and slightly darker than a rosé with a smooth, not-too-sweet finish.  Mr. Cripsi’s parents store extra bottles of this wine in their cellar.

One serving of pasta with two meatballs, two slices of prosciutto, six olives, three cheese slices, one small slice of cake and two fennel wedges will cost about $15, and total 700 calories and 45 grams of fat.  Yet none of the women are an ounce overweight and the men are lean and strong.  When asked why Italians live so long, Mrs. Crispi laughs and says she still has not figured out that mystery of Italian culture.

Sunday suppers start around 2 p.m. after Catholic mass.   Before the forks are lifted, a family member says a blessing out of the My Favorite Faith Building Promises book, which is stored in a small wooden dresser next to the kitchen table.  When pre-kindergarten Sammy gets his turn to read, he sounds out each sentence and then the family repeats after him, exchanging verses and smiles.

The table talk lasts as much as two hours, as the parents relish in stories of the past.    The espresso at the end of the meal prompts a fifteen-minute flashback to when Mr. and Mrs. Crispi first met.

Both parents were born in the United States after their parents emigrated from Italy in the 1950s.   They came with nothing and worked to make a name for themselves through a successful catering business and real estate company, which the parents both help to run now.

The Crispis are proud that they can stay true to their Italian roots in New York. But they cannot help but compare countries.

“This mozzarella is from a great Italian spot in Staten Island, but it’s not a bull’s mozzarella like back in Italy,” said Mr. Crispi.  “You’ve got to see this video we took with the bulls!”

The long day of family dining concludes with piano time.  Little Sammy sits down and attempts to play “Ti Chaimo.” He forgets and storms off, crying high-pitched tears of embarrassment.   He finds solace in playing his Gameboy in the kitchen next to his mother in the kitchen as she wraps up the dishes and gets ready for the 6 p.m. post-dinner meal.

See the pasta sauce recipe here.

Jenna Dagenhart