In 2019, I got an Italian grandmother for Christmas. Her name is Maria Volontà and she will be 100 years old in February. We are not related by blood; and I didn’t know them the day she started cooking me her Christmas Eve chickpea casserole, the same day she announced she was going to be my mom now.
When Nonna Maria adopted me as her new great-granddaughter, I was in my late nonna’s native Calabria, at the tip of the Italian boot, on a research trip to its fascinating Greek-speaking land. I was writing a novel set in this region during Christmas 1960. As I walked through the December sun-filled mountains from the valley to the thousand-year-old stone town, I sat down with elders in their 80s and 90s, witnesses of the church. the history I was trying to record.
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Nonna Maria and her daughter, the architect Antonella Casile, were sent to me by a friend of an acquaintance. I arrived at their house in Bova Marina at 2 pm with my notebook and my tape recorder, expecting to stay for two hours. (Yes, I had the naive idea that I would leave without dinner – almost as I had never met an Italian grandmother before). In the yard there was a lemon tree bearing fruit. December was quick to drink lemons, but they are already bigger than my hand.
The non-native person who greeted me was hardly as tall as my chest, with dark eyes set deep in anxious lines, and such a graceful grace in his speech that it made me think of the images of the Virgin Mary from many nearby churches. Maria, with her steel trap memory and musical voice, was the key I was looking for to unlock the past.
courtesy of Juliet Grames
Maria and Juliet Grames
He shares his memories, proverbs, poems and songs in his native Greek. We had been talking for a few hours when suddenly he came across the table and took my hand. “Do you still have your nonna?” he asked me. Actually, I lost my Italian grandmother last year, at the age of 98.
“Well, I’m your mother now,” said Maria, then added with charming humility, “if that’s all right.”
This precious friendship will bring me great comfort during the years of panic that we didn’t know was coming – when my family would especially appreciate Maria’s hard-won wisdom about surviving poverty, finding joy in simplicity and connecting with others spontaneously. generosity.
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When supermarket shelves were empty, Maria suggested a delicacy from her poor childhood – polenta with roasted garlic; brothy pasta with one egg cracked into it for protein – a reminder that you don’t need luxury to be nourished and satisfied. As 2020 rolls around and the Lockdown takes place, it reminded me that the reason we have holidays is because before our modern age, management was rare; The celebration once required work and planning. Maria taught me how to rekindle the joy of the holidays by appreciating the old-fashioned labor of love involved in keeping traditions alive.
courtesy of Juliet Grames
Maria is eating chickpeas
I was allowed to leave that night at 11 pm only with the promise that I would return the next day to find “something very special.” That was the chickpea casserole that is usually eaten on Christmas Eve, “la Vigilia,” a holiday vegetable feast where meat is not allowed before midnight. My family’s holiday traditions now include Maria’s new – and very old – chickpea casserole recipe, given to me by my new, and very old, nonna. The casserole is a proven vegetarian crowd-pleaser, hearty and substantial as well as hot and comforting, proof that the oldest is sometimes the most modern.
And after dinner, I was gently kidnapped, forced to take lodgings with the daughter of two mothers during my two-week stay. Every evening, Maria stood at her stove, 10 decades of life on her shoulders as she cooked pan-softened pasta to make for scholars and traditional artists who came to visit her. Watching Maria’s strong, patient generosity, the nonna’s endless admiration at the height of her power, was sweet to my still sad heart.
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Over the years that followed when we couldn’t visit each other, Antonella kept in touch with us through WhatsApp. I wrote my novel, The Lost Boy of Santa Chioniawith my two Calabrian mentors looking over my shoulder, continuing my rigorous education in Greek culture as they sent me instructional videos on how to cook Greek delicacies and wanted me to respond with my videos to prove I was doing it right. I was honored to use their names for the main characters in my novel about their beautiful and secret corner of the world.
Alfred A. Knopf
‘The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia’ by Juliet Grames
Traditions are sacred because we make them sacred. Connecting with our heritage can bring us joy, but connecting with someone else’s heritage can be an equal joy, a gift to admire our precious traditions and illuminate our commitment to them. We can choose to make new traditions sacred the same way we can choose to make friends into family.
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The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames is available now, wherever books are sold.
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