I?As butter is not a large part of the Southern Italian pantry, it was seldom seen at our table. Bread was never buttered unless it was to be eaten alone as a snack. Bread was used at meals to soak up the remaining sauce from a pasta, meat, or poultry dish. The thinking is that buttered bread only corrupts the flavors of the leftover sauce.
II?Regarding the use of bread, some argue that the Florentines make unsalted bread to this day so that it might be as “neutral”-tasting as possible, in order to maintain the integrity of the sauce it absorbs. Others argue that the lack of salt in Florentine bread is because unsalted bread lasts longer, or it’s the result of an innate or inherited Tuscan parsimony stemming from a time when Italy was divided into city-states and wars were fought over necessary and coveted commodities such as salt, which was very dear. When we lived in Florence we never could get used to the unsalted bread, which we found dry and tasteless. I must confess that sometimes I think the best bread in Italy is in France.
2
Like many suburban saplings raised in 1960s America, I would bring lunch to school every day. It was a rare occasion that I would buy a lunch the cafeteria provided. This was for two reasons. One, it was cost-prohibitive for my parents to do so, and two, the food the cafeteria served was dreadful. Anyone growing up at this time anywhere in America knows what I mean, and therefore I need not elaborate. （I will confess, however, to a penchant for the excessively glutinous white rice, served by way of an old-fashioned ice-cream scooper and deposited as a near-perfect sphere in a tiny pastel melamine bowl.） Now, there were those students who bought lunch either regularly or on occasion. I, however, was only given money （five to ten cents） solely for the purchase of a half pint of milk. （My lactose intolerance was, as yet, undiscovered.） Though many of my friends brought their lunches, the contents of my lunch box differed significantly from those of my peers. A prime example of my portable childhood lunch, lovingly packed into a pop-image-themed metal container （a.k.a. a Partridge Family or Batman lunch box）， would be something akin to the following:
A scrambled egg, fried potato, and sautéed sweet green pepper sandwich on two slices of Italian bread or in a “wedge” or a “hero,” which is a long loaf of Italian bread sliced horizontally and filled with whatever you choose to fill it with. In Philadelphia they are called “hoagies.”
One piece of fruit. （Apple, pear, or orange.）
One highly processed, prepackaged, store-bought dessert. （Twinkie, Devil Dog, Ring Ding, or Ho Ho. The names of which in retrospect seem as inappropriate as their ingredients.）
The fruit and the dessert were standard fare, but it was the sandwiches that were the marvel, and oftentimes made me the envy of my friends.
My dear friend Ricky S—— and I would trade sandwiches every now and again. The reason for this was that he was given a Marshmallow Fluff sandwich on white bread every day of grade school. （Today this would be considered a form of child abuse.） However, in those days no one cared—least of all me, who was more than happy to relinquish my gourmet fare for the unhealthiest schmear between two slices of bread known to man. I am sure he was equally happy to ingest something from which he could derive midday nourishment for once in his very white life. It is important to note that for the most part my exotic and coveted lunches were directly related to the previous night’s dinner. A typical week of said lunches might have looked something like this:
Monday: Meatball wedge. As we had meatballs in a slow-cooked, homemade ragù with pasta for Sunday dinner, this lunch was a natural choice.
Tuesday: Chicken cutlets on Italian bread or a wedge with the smallest amount of butter or mayo and lettuce.
Wednesday: Eggplant parmigiana wedge. The eggplant parmigiana was not breaded. It was made in light tomato sauce, had very little cheese, and incorporated thinly sliced potatoes.
Thursday: Veal cutlet sandwich or wedge with a small amount of butter and lettuce. This was in the days of affordable veal.
Friday: Scrambled egg, pepper, and potato wedge. As the food budget was wearing thin by the end of the week, this was an inexpensive lunch my mother might whip up on Thursday night after a simple dinner of pasta and salad.
Lunches on the weekends were catch as catch can. Whether friends were at my house or vice versa, we would raid the fridge and make stacks of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As we got older, we would make sandwiches of every ilk: tuna salad, bologna and mustard, ham and cheese, liverwurst and red onion, turkey breast and mayo, American cheese and mayo, all on whatever bread was available （sliced white, Italian, bagels, kaiser rolls, etc.）。 We ravaged jars of dill pickles and sweet gherkins, bags of Ruffles potato chips and Fritos. We washed it all down with gallons of milk, orange juice, apple juice, or lemonade （did any of us ever drink water?）。 For dessert we emptied the freezers of ice pops of every unnatural color and flavoring. During school breaks we did the same, but in winter we added hot chocolate （Swiss Miss, with little marshmallows, from individual packets） to our gluttonous midday rampages.