Sandra M. Gilbert's "The Culinary Imagination"
Another prominent Bay Area author who discusses the experiences of Italian Americans through food writing is the late Sandra M. Gilbert, whose nonfiction book entitled The Culinary Imagination focuses greatly on ideas of assimilation and the difficulties that arise from leaving one’s homeland. These themes are particularly highlighted in the section entitled “Bitter Herbs or the Spices of Life? The Ambiguities of The Transnational Foodoir,” where Gilbert uses typical Italian herbs, and tarragon, to describe her Italian American experience, and the disconnect she feels with that identity (p. 167). At the beginning of the section, Gilbert mentions that her experience in writing a foodoir went differently than expected, stating her writing turned out “bitter” due to its message of “the alienating taste of loss that accompanies cultural displacement, the mouthful of bitter herbs that immigrants swallow as they journey from . . . the table of the familiar to the walls of estrangement” (The Culinary Imagination, p. 167).
This realization of the negative connotation, or bitterness that flavors the experiences of many Italian Americans is further highlighted in Gilbert’s writing about the memories she has associated with basil and oregano. When it comes to basil, Gilbert shares that it did not hold much importance to her Ligurian side, which she found peculiar considering the cultural importance of basil in Ligurian food preparations, but that basil was a staple on her Sicilian side, especially through her uncle Frank (The Culinary Imagination, p. 176-178). Gilbert describes that her Uncle Frank Adams, originally Frank Adami’s, name was changed upon arrival at Ellis Island from Sicily, in an act of stripping him of his Italian last name (The Culinary Imagination, p. 177). Her recollection of basil in his backyard and the way in which he charishes the basil can be seen as a symbol of her uncle trying to hold on to his homeland, even if it only exists in a pot in the yard.
This notion of immigration to the United States changing one’s identity is further demonstrated through her Ligurian grandfather’s love of oregano. In Gilbert’s discussion of her grandfather, she questions why he chose to use oregano on everything rather than basil, and comes to the conclusion that it could be because in oregano “there is a darker hint of basil grown more intense, a little more bitter, a little older” (The Culinary Imagination, p. 176). In this sense, her grandfather’s choice of oregano highlights the difficulty of moving to another country and the idea of immigration not only changing you, but potentially making you harder due to the hardships you face.
Taken a step further from her grandfather’s choice of oregano over basil is her mother’s attachment to tarragon, an herb that is not particularly Italian. Gilbert’s text about her mother demonstrates the loss of tradition that can come from assimilation, and her mother’s indifference to that loss (The Culinary Imagination, p. 167-172). In regards to her mother, Gilbert states that “her isolation, her ambivalent loyalties to Sicily, a land she barely remembers, and to America, the country whose company she longed so much to keep” changed Gilbert’s sense of belonging to her Sicilian roots (The Culinary Imagination, p. 167). This lack of connection that Gilbert experiences is further highlighted by her stating that:
“It is sad that my memories of an Italy I never really knew are so partial, so incomplete, slanting and glinting from the stems of rosemary, the leaves of basil, oregano, and then devolving into the tarragon that comforted my mother in her old age” (The Culinary Imagination, p. 180)
This recollection of her experience growing up demonstrates a juxtaposition between Gilbert’s and Giulianetti’s closeness to their cultural background, which gives insight into the varied experiences of Italian Americans in how much of their homeland is passed down from generation to generation, and the centrality of food in determining that degree of closeness. Yet it also demonstrates the wide range of Italian American food writing that exists, and, therefore, extends the group of readers that may find a sense of familiarity in that writing; while bringing the community closer together.