Growing Up Italian

Sauce my friend not gravy that word can not be said in italian

Thank you goombadi.....well thats how we pronounced it in Sicilian. Anyway thanks, it brought back so many sweet memories of my grampa and grammas house in Detroit....

this brings back so many great memories of being a child. I grew up in the early 80s in South Philly and it still was like this.

I love this video

RIP: Robert Loggia

This video reminds me of my family so much!

That’s the voice of Feech La Manna from the Sopranos isn’t it?

I'm an Italian American, and so proud to be. My grandparents raised my older brother, youmger sister and I. Myself being the middle. God , was I blessed. Not only to be the middle child, have an older brother and younger sister by exactly 11 months apart. Almost to the day, but to have MY GRANDPARENTS. My , mamma and my pappa . Everything from, Sunday dinners, to having our garden, which we cared for and tilled with the manure. Fresh Tomatoes, La manda, zucchini the size of a yard stick. Grapevines, and fig trees. A wine cellar, with homemade wine! Can't by that in a liquor store! Homemade bread, that my mamma made me delivere on my bike every Saturday and Sunday! No money exchanged. The monetary value was pride, and Love! I will always cherish what I had, and what was! I may not be blessed now, who knows. I will say, I was blessed and for that alone , makes me A BLESSED MAN! I love you Mamma and Pappy! Thank you, and God Bless for the vid ! Grazie. 👍🇮🇪

Italian Americans are pretty awesome.

So touching❤

That was beautiful. Period.

same here in Australia...only difference is that most Italians here came after WW2.....majority in the US came either side of 1900

Italian Gravy! Lol lol lol.

I miss my nonno

Born in 1999 in Chicago . My ancestors are from Southern Italy and Lithuania. I never knew my Mediterranean ancestors , and like he says, I somehow still feel the Italian heritage. Because my fathers family is so close in a way that is different from so many others, we make large dinners , pasta, bread, rice. Even some of the Lithuanian dishes, although I was never fond of them that much. It feels so much like the culture everybody has told stories about for years. My uncles are crazy men , my aunts are tough bitches, and my dad is like The Godfather . He has seen unthinkable things and yet he teaches me to do it the right way . He teaches me discipline and respect. And I’ve always felt it . And I hope to pass it onto my kids. This video really hit home

Viva, Nonna! Thank you, and God bless you! May you rest in holy peace.

Every point hits it right on the head.thanks for the memories.

Being a 100% Italian - being a first/second generation Italian-American in a very thickly Italianed borough of NY, I can say that this is strictly his reality. My father spoke no English until he was nine years old, and his mother never spoke any English. My other set of grandparents spoke nothing but Italian to one another; and, as an Aficionado of the Italian renaissance...to this day, a lover of my Italian heritage, and virtually all things Italian (the mob, notwithstanding - but they're Sicilian anyway, so they really don't factor in) I can tell you that my family in its entirety were Americans first, and as for me, if ever we went to war with Italy, sorry, my fellow paisans, my guns are aimed at Italy (But hide the Sistine Chapel, The Statue of David, and the Pieta, please; and most of the women, except for the fat ones.)

Heck i was born in 79, first generation, my dad came here in the 60's my in 72 after they got married. We did everything described in this video, I remember it all:


Made homemade sausage
Homemade wine (Red and White)
Homemade Ravioli's pasta's and lasagnas

Big Family get togethers at least 6 times a year..



This is a great video and I will never forget where my family came from because if it wasn't for my Grandparents and my parents I wouldn't be who I am today.

My family should have never sold the flat in Chicago 😭 wish we all lived together and kept the family tradition/culture alive. The lonliness of convenience. The lonliness of America. The individualist society has torn us apart. God bless our souls.

This was profound and so beautiful. (And yes I'm Sicilian so I have room to talk)

Born in 1959 and i tell you they were the best of times....Family was truly everything you could possibly imagine....all about your uncles and aunts and especially our Grand Parents....I would go back to them days in a flash...Ohh how i miss them days and how i miss my Grandparents...and what's so sad is that our families slowly leaving us also the culture is vanishing with them, the way of thinking and the Values of true family love.

Based Pastapeople <3

So true 👍

Oh how wonderful were the days when people had self & outward respect. Morals, dignity, always willing to help one another. They may not have had much but always willing to share. Where 5 ate, 10 were told to pull out a chair & join in "salute, mangia" God, family, honesty plus hard work built the America's. Great memories, zio would break out the accordian as we tangoed the night away with the smell of pizza & espresso in the air. Thank you Lord for such beautiful people, the Italians & all the wonderful immigrants who contributed. 🙏🥰👍

Most americans of european descent call themselves white. However, the italian americans will call themselves "italian." I used to wonder why. Now, I understand.

i love watching this, it brings back so many memories. My parents came from Italy in 1956, I was born in 68 and we grew up this way. Every dinner was a 3 course meal with something fresh baked for desert. First time I ate dinner at a friends house, we had pasta. When done the pasta, I asked where is the rest of the food but they just had pasta. We would have followed it with a steak or roast and homemade sausage and peppers. We had a huge garden, always fresh salad from June till basically November and if lucky, December. My dad had a science of putting the leaves on and off the endive and radicchio to maintain the plant. People now would get some expensive indoor green house. Not Italians, give them some good dirt and they will make the best tomatoes, lettuce and beans. We had fruit trees as well and in the fall, every weekend we were canning. I don't know how my mom did it but every morning she got up, put her apron on and took care of the house all day. I never appreciated back then but now I do and my friends always tell me now how they loved coming to my house back then as we always had something good to eat or my dad would bring out the gallon of homemade wine. Good memories that I hold dearly forever.

Born in 1951. I relate to every single thing you said. Our lives mirror each other's. I wish those days never ended. And I love being Italian. 🥰❤

American Italians and American Jewish, both lived similar lifestyles and seemed very similar to me.
An American friend once told me, Yiddisher mummas and Italian mummas, the same thing he said.

At roughly the 40 second mark the guy says We were Italians, everyone else the Irish, the Polish, the Jewish, they were American. Well what about the Greeks? Those guys (Greeks) are even more hard core than the Italians in that like the Italians they are very much into their own culture, food, etc .... but they also held on to their language and to this day visit Greece almost yearly if the funds are there. So what's the Italian American view about Greek Americans? Is that old saying true about Una Fatsa Una Ratsa?

SAME IN THE 70S AND 80S THINGS CHANGE WHEN THE GRANDPARENTS PASS EVERYONE DISPERSES NOT THE SAME

😊

This vi

How true. Love it and miss it.

I love this narrative. So beautifully told with a tender nostalgia. When I sing opera, I feel a wonderful connection with the magic of Italian culture and all its facets, the melody, the food, the art, the language. God bless you for this video.

I miss those days.

The story "Growing Up Italian" was written by my father Lawrence A Puccio.

Both sets of my grandparents came from Sicily. My dad came to America to New York at the age of 3 in 1906. He moved with his parents to California in the 30s. After his parents passed away, he married in 1941 to my mom( another Italian). I was born 2 1/2 years after my sister in 1945. I was a first-generation Italian American. I always loved my Italian heritage. This story is so authentic, with all the cooking, gardens, and families. I love every part of it. I never knew my dad's folks. I never knew my mom's dad. My mom's mother, my grandma, died when I was 5. SHHHHH ! I CAN HEAR THE MEATBALLS SIZZLING IN THE SKILLET ! 💙💙💙🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹

Thanks for sharing so many wonderful memories!!!

This is my story also. Thank you for sharing. Proud to be Italian American. A part of me died the days my grandparents departed & life has never been the same. And I know what you mean when you say your children got cheated out of the life/childhood you had. I know that feeling all too much but I will also say that I was one lucky little girl to be brought up in an Italian family. ❤

Feech

This just made me cry. I truly miss those times!

The narrator sounds like Robert Loggia

He lost me at “gravy”. It’s sauce. He’s the Amedigan.

My children never met my parents or grandparents. Their dad took a Ancestry DNA kit test finding he has another son. The same test found his great aunt of the father he never met.
His Mexican born mother refused to tell who his father was and now at 50 years old, with our two kids over 21 there is a chance he could meet his father. His father is Italian American.
Your story hits our family very hard. Our daughter is the family genealogist.

Wonderful. I was born in 1955 and lived in Hoboken. This captured my family. Thank you 😊

I miss those days when families got together.