We stayed out of Umberto’s way – i.e. his vegetable garden – and he stayed away from our toys and swing set.  It was a mutual understanding.  We may have been mere preschoolers spending our afternoons at his home in the daycare his wife ran, but we knew never to pluck a strawberry or snap a zucchini vine for use as a jumprope.  It wasn’t clear what Umberto did when he wasn’t covered in dirt (or if he even spoke English), but we did know that this man lived for his garden and the food it produced.  The zucchini, lettuce, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes were his babies to tend to, just as his wife Angie tended lovingly to us.

Umberto and Angie had immigrated from northern Italy years earlier and had brought the established tradition of the orto — the Italian kitchen garden — with them to their new home, like many of the Italians who arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had done before them.  Although growing one’s own vegetable garden has become more common today, the orto has long been a standard part of Italian life – for reasons both gustatory and economic.  Besides certainly serving as a haven from everyday worries, the Italian kitchen garden had a more concrete purpose for Umberto and his countrymen: it provided the simple ingredients for those fresh, vibrant recipes and flavors synonymous with Italian food.  By creating an orto in America, Umberto ensured he and his wife could continue to eat as they had when still in Italy.

But their garden was about more than satisfying their palates; it was a way for them to feel more at home in America.  To grow their own food and then taste those familiar flavors and meals helped them reconstruct the sense of home they had left behind.

When Italian immigrants poured into the US in the late 19th and early 20 centuries, they found themselves engulfed in an alien landscape, language, and world of flavors.  Eating Italian eventually would become possible, as immigrants opened Italian restaurants and planted ortos, and as Italian markets became thriving centers of the city, where those vegetables not grown in one’s orto could be purchased.

Some Italians took the orto a large step further and used their farming talents (many Italian immigrants had been farmers before they made their leap to the New World and brought seeds across the Atlantic) to become thriving participants in California’s agricultural industry.  The state’s mediterranean climate was just right for growing the Italian-farmed crops, which they would then sell in the larger produce markets.  According to Deanna Paoli Gumina in her The Italians of San Francisco, the Italians are credited with introducing San Franciscans to zucchini, broccoli, eggplant, Italian beans, bell peppers, parsley, garlic, rosemary, fennel, marjoram, oregano, and sweet basil.  With the Transcontinental Railroad transporting Californian produce across the country, the introduction of at least some of these vegetables and herbs must have included the populations of other cities as well. (Stay tuned for much more on this in a later post!)

My father remembers his Italian mother tending to the family orto growing up in the 30s and 40s.  He recalls a plentiful yield of zucchini, lettuce, beans, and tomatoes, as the garden thrived under the care of her green thumb.  And years later, Grandpa Frank would spoil us with the treasures from his own prolific orto: he would bring armfuls of lettuce, beans, baby carrots, zucchini, parsley and Swiss chard nearly every time he saw us. He spent much time tending to his garden, while possibly also tending to the memory of his childhood orto. I wish I could ask him now if he planted and picked according to the moon’s cycle, as so many Italians still do.

My family has a little orto of our own, connecting us to Italy, our relatives, and our ancestors.  I see Grandpa Frank in the red-veined, dark green leaves of the Swiss chard my eldest son proudly planted in the winter.  I imagine my grandmother Nina tending to her family’s garden when I see our zucchini and tomatoes inching their way to fruition.  And I imagine her excitement at the prospect of transforming that ripe zucchini into a torta.  I am reminded of my father’s fig tree when I see ours, and I can taste my mother’s pesto when I pass by our 16 basil plants preparing themselves for my sons to pluck their leaves and help me whip them into pesto all summer long for their appreciative father.  Even baby loves to get in on the action by licking the spatula.

There is nothing like growing your own food to transport and connect – connect to the earth, yes, but also to a land and lifestyle across an ocean; to connect to people with you, far from you, or those long gone — even those you never knew.   And growing your own orto — even if it is just a pot of basil or one small parsley plant — can give you the sense that you are linked with all of the above, as well as the Italian immigrant lifestyle of growing and eating the foods of their homeland.  They replanted their own Little Italy in America, in order to restore and retain the vibrant and familiar flavors of both food and home that they had left behind.

Try spinning those ingredients from your own orto into one of these Italian recipes (or just run to the store already and pretend you grew them):

ZUCCHINI TORTA ~ (adapted from my grandmother’s recipe):

Sauté 1 small onion and 2 cloves of garlic in 3 tablespoons olive oil.  Set aside until cool.

In a bowl, mix 1/4 cup parsley, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup grated parmesan, 1/2 tsp herbes de provence, 1/2 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, 4 large grated zucchini, and the cooled garlic and onions.

Pour into a greased pan (I use 11 3/4 x 7 1/2, but something around that size will do. 8 x 8 will require more cooking time).

Bake for 45 minutes, or until firm to the touch and lightly browned on top.

Zucchini Torta

PESTO ~ (inspired by a more elaborate recipe, without a couple of ingredients I don’t usually have lying around the house ~ but it still tastes amazing!)

Put in a blender or cuisinart (or if you are into being truly authentic, crush it all with your mortar and pestle) and whir together:

4 cups(-ish) basil leaves

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup parsley (but if you don’t have any on hand, can be omitted)

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup grated parmesan

~Enough pesto for a pound of pasta~

P.S. / FYI –  To grow your own veggies with a truly “authentic” Italian flavor, you can order up some seeds from the source at Seeds from Italy (www.growitalian.com).