Slices of Life: Italian-American Stories

By Joanna M. Leone

The book contains collective memoirs about family traditions, memories, travel stories and special Italian American memories. It is a keepsake for future generations. Also, the book shows the ways in which we remain connected to our Italian traditions and memories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463415587

Joanna M. Leone

Joanna M. Leone is a passionate Italian American who enjoys writing about special memories, travel stories, and traditions. She currently resides in Trumbull, Connecticut and is a graduate of Sacred Heart University. Also, Joanna has travelled throughout Italy and remains close to her traditions.

Book preview

THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN BIRTHDAY PARTY

This piece is dedicated to my special friend, Caryn Kaufman. She has known me since I was three years old. Caryn lived only two houses away from me in Trumbull, Connecticut. We rode tricycles together, went through training wheels on our next bicycles, spent time swimming at the lake, making mud-pies and playing in her sandbox. However, my most precious memory was the warmth of her home. She had the best toys in town and always knew how to share them. There was never a time that she said, This is mine. At her house, it seemed that her toys were ours. Even today, she helps me to make sense of my life. I admire Caryn for her creative talents, abilities, intelligence and her determination to achieve her career goals. If you have not met her yet, make time to meet her. She possesses so many talents and radiates warmth. We no longer play with the Barbie Camper or the Barbie Pool but we still share a very special bond. I find myself still talking to her about everything and anything, whether it be my career transitions or my love life. Her mother, Beryl Kaufman, always looked like she just stepped out of the beauty salon. Her hair was so stylish when we were growing up and it still is! Caryn’s house was heaven to me as she always had peanut butter and fluff. Her mom even cut the crust off the Wonder Bread! That sandwich was a paradise of white and sweet marshmallow goo and a nice break from prosciutto and capicolla sandwiches. The Kaufman’s house was like a resort and was right up the street from my house!

My Italian-American birthdays were quite special to me. I always had two birthday celebrations. There was a party during the afternoon and a family party on a Saturday or Sunday night. I remember my birthday parties vividly.

Although my parents were immigrants from San Donato, Italy, they were proud to be in America. Of course, they missed their country at times and we kept the Italian traditions alive. We also tried to incorporate the American traditions as well. It was most reflected in my birthday celebrations each year.

There was always a trip to Woolworth’s or Caldor’s the day before my celebration. My Mama loved buying those cardboard birthday hats with the little elastic band on the bottom. The hats would have a character motif such as Scooby Doo, Fred Flinstone, or a colorful and happy pattern such as a flower-power theme with bright orange and pink flowers. We put something on the top of those hats every year to show how proud we were to be in America.

Perhaps you guessed it? Each year my friends and I attached mini American flags on the top of our party hats. I had friends from all backgrounds and many nationalities and we all had an American flag sticking out of the top of our hats.

My Mama was a precise person. Everything had to match on my birthday. We used china during the family parties but the children’s party was different. She always had the matching paper plates to go with our hats. There was always a theme to the party that Mama coordinated. I will admit that I went with Mama to the store so that I could be sure she selected ‘the cool stuff’ and that most definitely did not include anything remotely science fiction. I had to accompany Mama on her shopping trip because I was the self-appointed quality control person. I was there to make sure Mama did not buy me anything that was going to be embarrassing.

The invitations to my party always matched the established theme as well. One year there was an invitation that Mama sent to the wrong address. My friend ended up crying because she thought she was not invited. Mama had to patch that up with the promise of an extra goody bag. Now, many of us use email to invite people to our parties.

My favorite part of our shopping trip was buying the ‘Sacchetto Della Caramella’, we called it ‘The Goody Bag’. Take a walk with me through the candy aisle. Do you remember Dot Candy? Oh, how I loved that long, white piece of paper with those sugary dots. It was more than just a candy, for me, it was the essence of my childhood. I always loved to eat them right off the paper. I was especially fond of the pink dots! The Dot Candy was essential. My Italian Mama never really understood how I could consider Dot Candy to be a real candy. Mama thought candy had to be delicately wrapped in foil and consist of such things as nocciola or hazelnut. She also thought that candy should be thicker. However, I was lucky that part of being an Italian-American meant that Mama wanted to conform to the American ways, especially for the birthday celebration with my friends. The family party, well, that would be another story as you will see later.

Okay, the Dot Candy goes into the shopping cart. What would be next? I will give you a hint, this candy can cause a sugar high that could last for hours and it turned your tongue the color of the sugary substance you chose to consume. Yes, you guessed it, Pixie Sticks. Can you remember those? They were long, narrow, paper straws which were sealed at each end. Most children had their parents cut it open, or they ripped it open with their teeth. I remember that there was a special way of eating a Pixie Stick. As children we stuck out our tongues and poured some of that sugary substance directly on top, swished it around and gulp! Get it into your tummy and then repeat the process. My tongue would turn bright red, orange or whatever color I was eating and the best part was sticking out your tongue to show the color you had consumed with such gusto!

My Italian Mama would stare at this straw-shaped candy for a few minutes, not understanding how this could be considered candy. I would mobilize and say, Please! Please! Can we Mama? Can we? Of course, Mama did the patriotic thing and bought it.

Continuing down the aisle Mama bought that popular candy called Mary Janes. I know you can remember this one. They were small, rectangular, peanut butter tasting and chewy! My jaw hurt after chewing on a Mary Janes. My Mama would say the same thing each year, Your going to break your teeth with all of those Mary Janes!

Let’s not forget the large and round candy called a Jawbreaker which was always included in my goody bag. The Jawbreaker, also sugary, came in yellow, blue, red and orange. My friends and I were all determined to get to the center of those things. However, I do remember seeing a lot of Jawbreakers on the ground at my birthday party. I think some kids gave up as it really took hours to get to the center.

The last item to be included in my goody bag was a plastic toy. The toys were simple but so much fun! Sometimes we would get those little plastic bottles of bubbles in bright green, shocking pink and blue bottles. We had contests to see who could blow the largest bubbles. My Mama always reminded me to blow the bubbles outside. I was never allowed to blow bubbles in the house. Remember, my Italian Mama worried about the Roman statue holding the gold grapes which stood in the living room. The carpet was sacred as well and she did not want it to get wet.

Sometimes, at the last minute, we threw in a tiny plastic pin ball game. These games were very small, almost fitting the palm of your hand, and there was a little silver ball that you had to push inside to get through a maze. Other times Mama bought the paddles with an elastic that had a little ball attached. The object was to keep hitting the ball up and down.

All of these goodies were placed inside a plastic bag themed to match the hats and delicately tied with sky blue or pink ribbon or yarn. I am not sure why Mama did this. We were like vultures tearing our bags open.

The menu for my party was deliciously filled with calories, and yes, more sugar. Of course, the menu changed for my family birthday party, but we will get to that in another story.

There were giant-sized, sugarcoated, gum drops that we tried sticking to our teeth. Then, Cheese Doodles, the snack of the century and a ritual on my party menu. I loved having those puffy orange crunchy pieces on my birthday table. We all loved how they made the tips of our fingers orange as well as the corners of our mouths!

Beside the Cheese Doodles were Cracker Jacks, a popular favorite of peanuts and carmel-coated popcorn. Another treat to get stuck between your teeth. There was a prize in the bottom of the box, usually a thin plastic watch, toy car or some kind of plastic whistle. I wonder why we did not have toothbrushes in our goody bag? The dentists when we were growing up must have been quite busy, especially after my party.

Finally, the king of snacks, Hoodsie Cups! Remember those ice cream cups that are half vanilla and half chocolate? Those little plastic cups brought huge smiles to my Italian-American birthday party. The more sugar the better! Now all I allow myself is low-fat ice cream or frozen yogurt. As a child I hoped there was an extra bag of them in the freezer so we could all have seconds. Of course, Mama always had enough for seconds.

I never had an ice cream cake. This was the one thing I longed for growing up and even as an adult. However, I think I was brainwashed by Mama earlier in my life as my Italian Mama believed that a cake had to be torta or simply, cake. An ice cream cake did not count and she said it would melt in the heat of July. I accepted the fact that I was not entitled to an ice cream cake in the heat. It is funny how that stuck with me all of these years. I did not understand Mama’s logic because I was able to have Hoodsie Cups! My one scar from childhood is that I was never able to have an ice cream cake.

My birthday cake was a Duncan Hines Chocolate Cake with white frosting and always rectangular. Mama did not like change, so it always was the same. She added strawberries for stripes and blueberries for the field of the flag. I was always proud of my flag cake made by my Italian Mama. The cake sat right next to the grape or cherry flavored Kool-Aid.

My brother always devoured the left-overs. We did not need a garbage disposal at our house because we had my brother. I always followed my brother around the house and he always said, Quit following me. I am still close to my brother, Dan (Donato, Jr.). Dan never participated in the kid birthday parties because he was too busy with his coin or stamp collection and he worked a lot of hours at a local bank. My family parties were another story, and Dan never missed any of those.

At my party we played games like twister, volleyball, tag and pin the tail on the donkey. I never invited boys to my parties until my teen years. I remember someone always cried because they lost or they could not be on a team with their best friend.

I did not have a swing set, sand box or in-ground swimming pool. Sometimes we would seesaw on the wooden plank and concrete block that my Italian father built for me. I have referred to that seesaw before in my story Italian-American Summer. The seesaw that my Papa had made for me was perfect and luckily, we never got splinters on our butts. We ran threw the sprinkler and we played with water balloons.

There was one year when I persuaded my mama to buy an inflatable, plastic slide. After connecting the hose we enjoyed running and sliding on our tummies on the long sheet of yellow plastic with the water squirting out from the sides. The only problem was that my Mama yelled for hours, right in front of my friends, embarrassing! You are going to ruin the grass! My grass! yelled Mama. I thought she was going to throw her rolling pin down on the ground. The grass was flattened, wet and mushy so my mother put the inflatable slide back into the box and that was the end of that! Yes, my Italian parents were protective of their grass.

I remember receiving great gifts. One of my favorites was Play-doh. I loved the smell of that colored clay! I received a Spirograph and enjoyed placing the colored pens in the different sized holes to make shapes and form cool designs. However, the best gift of all was the Etch-a-Sketch. These toys were the classics of my childhood. One friend gave me a toy tea set which I loved. It is amazing that I remember such things and how much fun they were!

What will I do this birthday, as a mature adult? Okay, perhaps not that mature! I do not think I will have the same treats I did as a child. Perhaps a watermelon martini instead!

ITALIAN-AMERICAN EASTER,

PASQUA AND PASQUETTA

I was sound asleep dreaming about the huge Perugina chocolate egg. I could not wait to get to the dining room and rip open the purple foil and pink bow! Sure, the pink bow was beautiful, but as an Italian-American child I did not worry about saving the dainty pink bow.

All at once I was awakened by the scent of anise which rose up through the ceiling and into my bedroom. The scent of anise never leaves my mind! It has the smell of licorice and is an ingredient in my Mama’s Easter Breads. Ahhh! The aroma fills our house every year at Easter!

My Mama always bakes about twelve round loaves of Easter Bread. The bread is a pale yellow color with anise. We mix white confectioners sugar with water and frost the tops of the Easter breads. My Mama always places the bread on paper plates and covers them with pink or purple cellophane paper. She never forgets the bows! No matter who stops in or visits they will leave with a loaf!

I remember when I was a little girl, every year at Easter, I would hear my uncle’s voice early in the day. He would bring my family the Easter Bread that my aunt had made! The Italians that I have always known are like that. Each of them wanting their friends and extended family to try something that they have made because everyone has a slightly different way of preparing it. The bottle of Sambucca was already opened and the Pizza Gaine was nearby too. Each slice of Pizza Gaine is an Easter blessing filled with salami, prosciutto, pepperoni, ham and egg. I hope I never lose this recipe card as it is a huge part of Italian Easter Sundays. Some call it meat pie, but we continue to call it Pizza Gaine. Sure, I can share the recipe with you, someday, if you ask.

As I hugged my Uncle to say, Happy Easter! I noticed that our picture perfect Pizza Gaine had already been cut. At our house, we did not wait for the Easter meal to begin sampling the food. My brother, Danny (Donato, named after my father), had taken a little slice. My brother was and still is the ‘Master Sampler of Food’. Mama always wants him to make sure the food she prepares is as good as the last time we had it. If my brother says it’s okay, then it is!

There are always Easter lilies at our house. My Mama buys them at the flower sale at St. Teresa’s Church on Easter morning. I still remember my white patent leather shoes with little hearts on them. My Mama always made me a pastel colored Easter dress as she was (and still is) a talented seamstress.

My sisters have always bought my Mama flowers for Easter, usually lilacs. Our house has so many flowers leading up to the Easter holiday it smelled like a perfume factory. The flowers are a large part of the Easter traditions of my Italian-American household. The palms from Palm Sunday Mass are as well. My Mama has always made crosses out of the palms. After creating a cross using nothing but the palms, she places a silk flower in the middle. She makes big crosses and some tiny ones. She always gives a cross to her friends and relatives along with the Anise Easter Bread.

I really did not go to many Easter egg hunts as a child. My Easter festivities were different. I remember that one of my neighbors had an Easter Egg hunt one year, the first hunt that I had ever gone to. I was blessed to have warm and friendly neighbors growing up. I was excited to be included in the Easter Egg Hunt but it turned out to be a bit traumatic for me. I was a little chubby as a child and my legs were not as long as my friends in the neighborhood. It seemed that I did not have any coordination and I did not run as fast as the other children. I think I was able to grab a couple of chocolate eggs and a tiny bag of jelly beans. As I wiped my tears I thought of the huge Perugina Egg and the overflowing Easter basket that each of my sisters had helped to put together. Somehow, the pain of the Easter Egg Hunt went away.

As I grew older we started to attend mass on Easter Eve, the Saturday night before Easter Sunday. After all, Mama had to prepare a nine course meal and have enough left overs for Pasquetta, Easter Monday.

I remember the huge pink plate of marinated eggplant. My Mama still marinates and puts her eggplant in small jars. I will be sure to share this recipe along with my other favorites, in some of my writings in the future. The eggplant tastes so good on white Italian bread or right next to a piece of provolone cheese. The antipasto on Easter consisted of homemade marinated eggplant which was drenched in olive oil, green and black olives, sliced pepperoni, salami, asiago and provolone cheese, and a pot of gold, Mama’s roasted peppers with garlic! Now, that is an antipasto! (Yes, that is on an index card as well!)

We always saved room for the roasted lamb with rosemary herbs, roasted potatoes and broccoli rabe. Now, hold on! It did not stop there. There was always a request for Mama’s chicken cutlets and to be sure that everyone is happy she never fails to make them. In addition, one of my sisters is a vegetarian so Mama learned to make Italian vegetarian dishes such as spinach and ricotta ravioli with marinara sauce. After all, a vegetarian has to be fed well too! A meat lasagna is also served each year in an extremely huge pan. I have no idea where my Mama bought a pan that big! To this day I search the stores looking for a pan like my Mama uses but I can’t find a pan nearly as large! There is always insalata or salad. Usually arugula salad, or romaine with all the trimmings! Yes, there were meatballs! We can’t have a holiday without Mama’s meatballs!

The ricotta pie can never be left out of an Easter holiday. It took me years to persuade my Mama not to use those dried, yellowish-green, citron fruits in the ricotta mixture. I persuaded her to switch to chocolate chunks and espresso coffee. The change has made ricotta pie a big hit at our house. There is one American item on the menu, Charlotte Rousse Cake. This thick and heavy chocolate cream cake has lady fingers around it and a graham cracker crumb bottom. It is similar to a gelato texture. If you eat one piece of that cake there will be instant lumps of cellulite on your legs! Since I am health conscious I stay away from it! It is delicious, but deadly! At our house, everyone takes home a few containers of food, or you can stop by again for left overs.

One of my sister’s boyfriends built Mama a custom dining room table. It is oval and has detachable legs. The holiday table could seat about twenty people comfortably. Every holiday it is the same thing, after cleaning every room in the house I ask my brother to help me get that table set up. He always says, Can we do it tomorrow? What is the rush? Well, I like to set the table at least one week before a holiday. My brother eventually gives in, after much yelling of course!

My Italian Mama is very fussy. The color of the plates and glasses have to be appropriate for the holiday. I have inherited my Mama’s fussiness. We have pink crystal for the Easter holiday and we have special Easter china, which has delicately painted light-blue flowers along the edges. It has been the same china for the past forty years! We always have fresh Easter flowers and china Easter eggs on the table.

I have also inherited another job. I am the one who hangs those plastic eggs outside on the trees and I must make sure our statues in the garden are all facing the right direction. The spring is when Mama shows off the garden and the flowers she has planted. So, the statues have to be in the right place. I am not allowed to move the St. Frances’ statue. One year a tree fell in our yard and missed our den window by just a few feet. Mama said that St. Frances protected our house therefore our small St. Frances statue must stay in the same spot!

Every Easter Season my Mama visits the cemetery. My Uncle Rolando is buried in Bridgeport, Connecticut but my Papa and Uncle Rocco are buried in San Donato, Val Di Comino, Italy. We send money to our relatives in Italy to buy Easter flowers for my Papa, Grandparents and other relatives, which they bring to the cemetery for us.

We have always enjoyed looking at old photos during the Easter holiday. There is something about spring and old photos that go hand in hand. Taking a walk down memory lane is important in our family.

We never forget to drink Sambucca or Limoncello. My family in Italy makes Limoncello, a delicious lemon liquor.

The Monday after Easter is Pasquetta. My Mama says that in Italy many Italians go to la montagna (the mountains) for a picnic on Pasquetta. My friends and family in Italy go to a place called St. Cesidia to have a picnic. It is a popular destination for their Pasquetta. They also go to my favorite place, Forca D’Arcero Mountain, right in the Abruzzo National Park area.

In America, the day after Easter, is a day for Italian-Americans to see friends or relatives that we may not have seen on Sunday. It is traditional to eat leftovers at home with family. Sometimes I am still cleaning up the kitchen from the day before and it can seem that we wash dishes for several days! There is always plenty of lasagna left over!

May this Easter, or Pasqua, touch your heart in many ways!

Buona Pasqua!

ITALIAN-AMERICAN SUMMER

I remember eating red Italian ice in the summer, no matter what the occasion! Our summer picnics and family gatherings were very different from the rest of the neighborhood even though my parents really tried hard to include the American traditions as well. Please take a walk with me to my home in Trumbull, Connecticut and enjoy an Italian-American Summer at the Leone’s house. I can give you directions, or you can map quest to find my house. If you get lost just look for the house with the Lincoln Continental, Thunderbird and Cadillac in the driveway. If you still are not sure walk near our kitchen window and follow the scent of garlic. It is the mid to late 1970s. and this is how it was. I have a photographic memory of my childhood and growing up Italian-American.

My father, or Papa, as I called him, always worked Monday-Sunday. Papa always made time to care for our yard where so many fun summer family gatherings took place. I remember how proud he was of riding his yellow lawn mower.

No matter how hard he worked, my Papa came home for the important family gatherings on Saturdays or Sundays. He made sure he was on time. Italians had many opportunities in America. My family and many of our Italian friends were skilled laborers, such as stone masons, carpenters, foremen, painters, brick layers, bakers, bakery or restaurant or pizzeria owners, chefs, plumbers and electricians. My father originally belonged to a union when he started to work for a construction company in America, but the union contract would not allow my father to work on weekends. My father, the stone mason, needed to work all week, even on weekends. When you start to read about the quantities of food we ate at our house you will understand why!

My father left the union and decided to start his own business. The Italians that I knew did not usually work nine to five jobs. I was never embarrassed of my parents and will always be proud of their work ethic. (Okay, maybe there were times I was a little embarrassed of the rusty dented pickup truck when my dad drove me to school.) I loved my Papa and all the things he represented in my life.

I loved the summertime. Think back to how much fun summer was when you were a kid. As an adult summer is fun but nothing compares to the Italian-American summers I enjoyed as a child.

An Italian-American summer gathering still meant baked ziti drenched with marinara sauce and topped with grated cheese. Sometimes I longed for the cold fresh taste of mayonnaise on my pasta, with thinly sliced carrots and celery, just like the kind my American friends enjoyed at their homes. At my house, it was baked ziti and even on a hot summer day of 85 degrees my mother still worried about the food getting cold. My cousins and I would quickly run to the table when we heard my mother yell, Dove siete? (Where are you?) My neighbors and friends had dinner bells that they rang from the deck or porch or their parents would go quietly in search of their children when dinner was ready.

At our Italian house we did not have a dinner bell. The only bell we heard as Italians were the bells at St. Margaret’s Shrine in Bridgeport or at St. Teresa’s Church in Trumbull. We had more civilized ways of being called to dinner, with my mother screaming at the top of her lungs, Dove siete? That was our order to ride our bicycles back to my house or run to the picnic or dinner table.

Follow me over to the summer picnic table. You will be amazed at what you will see. As you walk with me please do not step or ride your bike on my mother’s flowers or mint leaf garden. It was one of the first things out of her mouth when my cousins or friends would head back to the house. Mama would always say, Careful of my flowers and do not walk on my mint leaves, in Italian of course. My Mama never had a large garden of mint leaves, it was just a small section near our garage, but she was proud of those mint leaves. If you stepped on them, well, you better run! Inevitably, just as my Mama finished saying it in Italian, a friend who did not know any Italian would look at me and say, Huh? What is she saying? At that precise moment the tire of their bicycle would be right on top of the flowers or nestled in the mint leaves!

The thing about being an Italian-American is you have to do double-talk which can be very exhausting. This means that your parents say something in Italian and your friends look at you like a deer in the headlights and say, What? Huh? What is she saying? The story of my life was to translate everything so my American friends could understand what my mother was yelling about!

The Italian-American summer meant that you had to have a red and white checkered tablecloth. You could always find one at Caldor’s. Italians loved Caldor’s and Bradlees. If not, there was always a handmade one that my Mama sewed herself.

The tablecloth was always linen and neatly ironed. Imagine using a hot iron on a summer day! I do not know why my Mama made extra work for herself on Sundays. The American tablecloths were vinyl or plastic. Mama would never think of a plastic or vinyl tablecloth. As I think of it, there was not a person in my family that owned one. Italians knew what vinyl was but they thought it was for siding the house and never a tablecloth!

During the summer the Italian-American never saw their parents use a buffet table. We had a table that was long enough to seat about fifty people and we put all the food on it! The secret was that we attached about four tables. The tables were lined up right next to each other to make one continuous table.

The Italians that I knew did not believe in sitting at separate tables. We all had to sit together and that was it! No questions asked! We did not go to buy one that was large enough. We used whatever we had in the garage or basement. In my Italian house I can remember my father using cement blocks to raise the height of the table. If one table was shorter that the other cardboard or cement blocks were used so that all the tables connected were exactly the same height. There was not any other house on the block that had such a long picnic table, nor did anyone use such creativity as to use cardboard or cement blocks beneath.

One of my sisters always managed to make us Kool-aid. We had bright red mustaches all day long. I do not know how my parents approved of Kool-aid. I think it was considered contraband in an Italian house. Somehow, she smuggled it in and made it for us. I have a lot of sisters, so I cannot remember who is responsible for this delicious memory.

Now, take a walk to your seat at the table but do not sit in the Matriarch’s or Patriarch’s chair! Those were the only assigned seats at the table. Mama sat at the end of the table that was closest to the kitchen or the dining room door. As an Italian-American I was able to understand that Mama sat there just in case she had to go back into the kitchen for more food or drink. So please do not take her seat! Otherwise, as I often heard on those hot summer days, Alzi. ci è una sedia là. Mama’s face grew a little red if you took her seat. The Italian phrase means, Get up! There is another chair over there.

My father sat in the Patriarch’s chair. It was a chair like no other chair. The Patriarch sat in the most comfortable chair and the homemade wine had to be right in front of him within arm’s reach. Every summer, no matter what the occasion, my Mama asked Papa, Are you going to take a shower and change your clothes before dinner? It was always the same line, no matter what the occasion. My American friends would never dream of sitting at the dinner table with cement on their shoes and shirt, sweat on their face and a dirty work shirt.

My father was a clean man and well-groomed but I remember that in the summer when he worked more hours as a stone mason, he did not always shower before company arrived. My father’s answer would be, No. No matter how many words my mother used, my father used only one, No. That was the end of that discussion. My mother could ask all she wanted but to my father summer was a time of relaxation and when he said, No with a firm voice, the topic was dropped.

Are you hungry yet? I am sure you are curious about the Sunday food during the summer picnics at our Italian house.

There was always a fruit bowl in the center of the table, filled with melon, strawberries, purple and white grapes, cherries, and dried figs. My parents always had dried figs. My American friends were scared when they saw the dried figs. Dried figs are usually a light brown color and look a bit wrinkled. My friends had asked me, Why do your parents have rotten fruit? I would explain that it was dried fig. It took me about thirty minutes to chew a single dried fig and I needed a lot of soda to wash it down my throat.

Beside