My Father’s Books

The Taste of the Dough

96 The Taste of the Dough Dur­ ing our years of in­ creas­ ing pov­ erty, my ­ mother’s skill at shap­ ing dough into sur­ pris­ ing ­ shapes was all that re­ mained alive of her love of­ things Ital­ ian. In her ­ travels to Italy she had made a last­ ing dis­ cov­ ery: how to use the magic of shap­ ing the dough to free us from the sad re­ al­ ity of our pov­ erty and hun­ ger. She was per­ haps the first who, be­ fore the Ital­ ian oc­ cu­ pa­ tion, ­ brought to her na­ tive land the se­ crets of spa­ ghetti, mac­ a­ roni, la­ sagna, and many, many other Ital­ ian en­ chant­ ments made of dough. With a lit­ tle flour and water, and much love and ar­ tistry, she in­ dulged the dap­ pled il­ lu­ sions of our child­ hood. Al­ though, in ac­ tu­ al­ ity, we al­ ways ate the same dough through­ out our days of pov­ erty, it al­ ways ­ seemed as if ­ Mother had made us some­ thing new. She of ­ course fol­ lowed the fam­ ily tra­ di­ tions of mix­ ing dough to make ­ Balkan-style noo­ dles, round ­ loaves, pitas, bu­ reks, and rolls, but with the added Ital­ ian magic for shap­ ing the dough, she in­ creased our sense of her Med­ i­ ter­ ra­ nean dream, the il­ lu­ sion of her ­ travel from long ago. No mat­ ter how much my ­ mother ­ wished to re­ tain her mem­ o­ ries of that dis­ tant Ital­ ian voy­ age, the pass­ ing of time ­ brought for­ get­ ful­ ness; and yet she never for­ got how to shape the dough Ital­ ian style. That had be­ come a part of her life; it was in her blood. It had be­ come one of the bare ne­ ces­ sities of our life. My ­ mother ­ passed on to us chil­ dren her love of twist­ ing the dough into ever more fan­ ci­ ful ­ shapes. Often, our ­ mouths ­ filled with the ­ doughy­ shapes, we felt the touch of our ­ mother’s hands. This taste lin­ gered a long time in our lives, even after we had left be­ hind our years of pov­ erty. ...