Memories are formed more by discontinuities than continuities in our lives. Because of this, I think, the only Christmas I remember well is a Christmas celebrated away from home, a Christmas spent in Little Italy.
December 24, 1955—Christmas Eve Day
My dog Blackie and I look out of a frosted window that separates the crisp Chicago winter morning from the comforting warmth of grandmother’s flat. Grandma’s wizened face is dark, almost swarthy. Nonna wears spectacles with thin silver rims and a long black dress protected by an apron she knitted herself. We work with silent efficiency in packing the last of the ravioli that we will bring to the market to sell to a local merchant. As I gather the now-dried ravioli which are spread throughout the flat, I savor the rich and sweet aroma of fresh basil.
A chilled wind hits our faces as we pack the last cartons of ravioli on the two decrepit red Flyer wagons we use for transport. We pull our wagons past Laflin Street and Ashland Boulevard, and we make it to Halsted Avenue, which will lead us to our destination: South Water Market.
When we arrive, we wander through various warehouses and loading bays. Finally, a familiar face is found. Hardly looking up from a newspaper, he exposes prodigious gaps in his cigar-stained teeth when he tells Grandma, “We ain’t buyin’ any more raviolis from you. We’re importin’ ’em in frozen from Italy. We can get ’em a lot cheaper that way.”
Grandma’s protestations fall on deaf ears. The man whose jawline had long ago disappeared into one of his chins rises from his chair while making a lifting gesture with both arms and says, “Listen lady, I gotta make a living too.”
Later that evening, while watching the Christmas episode of “The Honeymooners,” I munch on anise-flavored biscotti and wash it down with cream soda. Blackie snuggles near me beside a clanging radiator.
Grandma looks at carolers on the street outside. She smiles a distant smile, but her eyes do not reflect contentment; they reflect apprehension.
She has no real monetary worries to speak of. But she is a fiercely independent woman. It is an independence that she may have been born with, but more likely developed in the hard and brutal struggle it takes to leave one’s native land, one’s relatives, and one’s traditions in order to emigrate to a new and strange land.
It was an emigration that allowed her to take her only possessions—her children and her values; respecting others and taking pride in one’s work. She would use these values in a free land not merely to survive, but to help her and her family live a fuller and more spirited life. They were strong values that she imbued in her children and her children’s children.
But now she looked out the window with apprehension. A heartless process in this free land, a process she did not understand, had taken away her sole means of independence and dealt her a cruel blow. She failed in the marketplace and with a fierce sense of pride; this was something she could not accept.
Nowadays, the solution to my grandmother’s difficulty would be simple: form a political action committee and lobby for a stiff tariff on imports of Italian-made ravioli.
That wasn’t my Grandma’s style.
One Year Later—December 24, 1956
I withdraw a spoonful, no more—no less, of ricotta filling and almost simultaneously place the filling onto a rolled sheet of dough. Grandma rolls another sheet of dough out of her newest capital investment, a deluxe Rolletti pasta-making machine. She carefully places the smooth and elastic sheet of dough onto the sheet containing 20 dollops of ricotta filling.
The efficiency in ravioli production brought about by the recently acquired capital equipment, which cost $14.78, allows Grandma to make 500 ravioli in the same amount of time it took to make 100 ravioli a year ago. Moreover, she charges a lower price to compete with the frozen Italian imports.
Grandma may not even have to worry about the inferior Italian product much longer. It turns out that the frozen patties tend to break apart in the cooking process, leaving a large quantity of naked ricotta balls and trails of pasta remnants looking like discarded rags floating in a pot of boiling water. Even those ravioli that survive the cooking process are mushy—not the requisite al dente.
She smiles at me while I take the tray full of ravioli to the bedroom to dry. I suddenly realize the sense of pride and satisfaction one must feel when ingenuity and hard work bring success in the marketplace.
Grandma beat the market, and that smile on her face told me she knew it.
Editor’s Note: The above article is excepted from a chapter in The Market Economy by Jim Doti and published by Oxford Press. For more on Doti’s most recent economic forecast, see page 1.
