Italian-American Feasts

...and the promise of vegan sausage and peppers!

In New York, this Thursday begins the annual Feast of San Gennaro. The festivities happen to kick off on September 11th this year, hopefully bringing some joy to a very solemn day.

This will be the 99th annual feast honoring Saint Januarius, the patron saint of Napoli, where a large portion of Italian-American New Yorkers’ ancestors emigrated from- including yours truly! What began as a humble shrine erected on Mulberry St. in San Gennaro’s honor has evolved into a massive street fair that lasts for almost two weeks. It still takes place in Little Italy, which has significantly shrunken in size over the past century.

The festival originated on a small scale to help distribute money and resources to those in need in the community. It has since become a HUGE destination, which tourists flock to each year, complete with traditional Italian street foods alongside some more common fried foods often found at state fairs.

Many locals avoid it like the plague, or refer to it as the San Generic Feast due to how commercial it has gotten over the years. Others look forward to strolling through and taking it all in. While this is perhaps the most famous feast day in this tradition, it is just one part of a much wider Italian-American tradition.

Taken from https://sangennaronyc.org/

Italian-American saints’ feast days are lit- even for those who aren’t Catholic, it’s a colorful tradition to honor our heritage and ancestors. (I am specifically speaking here about Italian-American traditions in NY- not in Italy and not in other cultural groups or locations. I can’t speak first-hand about those traditions. I can, however, share about my lived experiences as an Italian-American raised Roman Catholic in Staten Island, NY.)

Feast days are designed to honor saints who were worshipped in the homeland. The traditional festivals back home were replicated in their adopted home of NYC, creating new traditions to invoke those they grew up with. It must have been a great comfort and joy to recreate those traditions in a new and unfamiliar land, far from the family and churches in the immigrants’ village, now living in a society where they have not yet found their place and were still widely viewed as “dirty” or “outsiders.” (The unnerving irony of anti-immigration among many Italian-Americans will continue to baffle and disappoint me).

While lots of delicious food is often involved, the word “feast” here more applies to the religious celebrations connected with that saint. When I picture feasts, there is a beautiful mosaic of images, scents, and sensations that come to mind. A procession where church members carry the statue of the saint through the streets, flanked by the devoted church-goers, often accompanied by loud music and cheers. The bright lights of carnival rides contrast with a clear dark nighttime sky, speckled with the lights from buildings in the foreground. The warm glow of votives in the shrine, calling out for God’s grace and protection for the departed or the downtrodden. The smell of fried foods wafting through the air- zeppole, sausage and pepper heroes, calzones, panzerotti, pizza by the slice. The sensation of shaking a paper bag to coat the fried zeppole in powdered sugar- this acts as both a magnificent melty coating atop the fried dough, and also a way to slightly drop the scorching temperature. Because if we’re being real, nobody can resist a fresh zeppoli long enough to not risk burning their mouth a bit.

Without a doubt, my most beloved feast is Staten Island’s own Feast of Our Lady Mt. Carmel. The name refers to the form of Blessed Mary who was patroness of the Carmelites. It is held outside in mid July in the Italian-American enclave of Rosebank. A highlight is the Mt. Carmel society parade that goes through the streets for up to 4 hours. The feast itself is filled to the brim with all the foods one would expect, carnival games, a beer garden, and live entertainment including cult-famous Uncle Floyd (famous for his local public access show in the late 70s who hosted legendary bands such as The Ramones and Television as musical guests) and an iconic Elvis impersonator.

The author sharing a moment with said Elvis impersonator, July 2023.

My favorite part of the feast is when I wander off from the loud, crowded scene and enter the grotto. The grotto is on the National Registry of Historic Places, and is exemplary of Italian-American folk art masonry at its finest. Began by local Vito Russo, the shrine was built in 1937 from stone and concrete by the local community to honor the Madonna del Carmine. To me, the space emanates a deep, comforting peace that feels much like a mother’s loving embrace. It feels like a source of both internal and community strength, meaning one feels centuries of collective loving worship at shrines while also experiencing a personal connection to this manifestation of a divine light. I take my time gazing at the statues, at the faces on the photos and mass cards looking out at me. I feel the warm glow of the strung lights, the votives, the summer breeze and I feel a oneness in that fleeting moment.

The Grotto in all its glory. Our Lady Mt. Carmel Feast, July 2023

When we were first dating, Jay and I attended the feast each year, often for multiple days whenever we could swing it. Once we started a family, it quickly became something that we looked forward to doing together each summer. Since living in Illinois, we’ve tried to plan our summer trips so that we could attend at least one night of the feast. Information has always been hard to find online- the social media page doesn’t seem to be updated for years, and you have to sort of know where to look for the flyers in Rosebank. I hound my friends back home annually to send me a pic of the schedule whenever they spot one.

The Shrine. Our Lady Mt. Carmel Feast, 2023

The food is, of course, a major draw for attendees. The smell of sausage and peppers caramelizing on a grill carries through the air, making many salivate. It’s pretty safe to say that I will never eat the meaty version again, but it is such a culturally significant food for me that I have made it my duty to recreate the best possible version of a sausage and pepper hero without any animal products. It’s a beautiful thing to bring a piece of my upbringing to the Midwest, and especially beautiful to share the plant-based version with our beloved customers.

This week (and for the rest of September), we will be making vegan sausage and pepper heroes in the shop for lunch. The bread is different- I can’t find the traditional crusty Italian loaves commonplace in Staten Island, so we use a more available and regionally popular french roll, which actually lends itself quite nicely to the hero. It will be my way of honoring my background and allowing myself a healthy little microdose of nostalgia. Feel free to walk through our parking lot if you’re local- you just might catch that intoxicating scent of grilled peppers and onions in the air around lunchtime!

I know that the great city of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs have similar traditions that I’ve yet to take part in. But I guess that there’s a certain pull to what we grow up knowing and loving. The funny thing is, if I was living in New York I would likely skip the San Gennaro feast in search of solitude. But with a bit of space from it all, I can perhaps look at it from a broader perspective.

I am choosing to honor the original intentions behind the San Genarro feast this year by donating a small percentage of our sausage & pepper heroes to a local mutual aid organization. I will share more about that on our social media later this month!

As always, thank you for reading. Our daily operations have pretty much taken over most of our waking hours for now, so I don’t get to write nearly as much as I’d like to. So it felt really good to share with you today!