AUGUST 2020 31I know what you’re thinking: It’s the first time I’m meeting
my future mother-in-law, so I’d better like the eggplant. Of
course, I was thinking the same thing. And because my own
mother taught me impeccable manners, I had no intention of
saying anything critical about my wife’s favorite recipe—or the
woman who cooked it.
For a lot of people, eggplant is the polarizing cilantro of the
vegetable world: You love it or hate it. I hated it. Unequivocally.
My very large Italian-American family made “eggplant parm”
in the saucy-gooey-cheesy style that is common in pizzerias and
restaurants all over America. This style, I’ve come to understand,
is the outgrowth of the culinary game of telephone, or whisper
down the lane, where many of the wonderful recipes imported
from Italy over a century ago somehow morphed through the
generations into this “parm” style: “Dip in scrambled eggs, dredge
in either flour or breadcrumbs or both, fry, layer in a pan with
lots of tomato sauce and tons of mozzarella, and then bake.”
Practically everything edible can be “parmed,” which is how
the abominable “shrimp parm” got whispered down the lane.
But I digress.
All eight of my great-grandparents fled the poverty of Italy’s
Campania region in the late 1800s to find work—and love—in
New York City, eventually settling just across the Hudson River
in Jersey City. Why Jersey City? Because some of us are just
luckier than others. The cooking I grew up with in our blue-
collar, working-class microcosm was, in a word, pesante. In
the sauce vs. gravy war, our camp was heavily entrenched in
gravy, the three-hour, crimson-red, super-thick Sunday sauce
built upon the rendered fat and sticky browned bits of pork
ribs, sausage, meatballs, and braciole.
Antonia and her family are, well, different. Her parents left
the poverty of Sicily to come to the U.S. in the
1960s. Her mother arrived the year I was
born. Antonia was born a year later and
didn’t speak English until she went to kin-
dergarten. Her parents barely spoke English
when we met on that balmy August day for
lunch three decades after they moved here.
Antonia’s dad, Vito LoPresti, was a man
of very few words. He giggled a lot and
mumbled a lot, and he was one of the sweet-
est men I’ve ever met. He greeted me with
a huge smile, and when he realized I was
speaking to him in Italian, he said, “Bravo,
Antonio, bravo!” Antonia’s mom, Lucia, was
the Italian mother out of central casting: the
short, teased, matronly hairdo, the apron-
shirt with metal snaps up the front protect-
ing her house dress as she placed an insane
number of antipasti on the table. Her voice
was so high I imagined that if she lost her
temper the windows might rattle. I remem-
bered childhood aunts from Italy who spoke
in this octave. It was oddly reassuring, even
if she did sound like a macaw, chirping out
orders to Antonia and her sister, Maria.
So, what did Lucia’s eggplant taste like?
Antonia was right: It was the best eggplant I’ve ever tasted.
Choosing adjectives to describe it is difficult because they are
contradictory. It was both sweet and savory. Rich and ethereally
light. Moist but not at all watery. Silky but not oily. It was less
about mozzarella and more about the distinct sharpness of
Parmigiano-Reggiano. In other words, it wasn’t “parmed.” The
eggplant had been quickly pan-fried without egg or bread-
crumbs. Between each layer was her bright red, silky-chunky
tomato sauce made without meat. It was exceptional.
When I asked Lucia about her sauce, Vito laughed and
quipped that I should come fare le giare—do the jars. He was
inviting me to come can tomatoes with the family, and I was
thrilled. My own family used to can when I was a kid, but when
my grandfather Jim died, the tradition died with him. I would
not be exaggerating if I told you that being invited into this
whole situation weighed heavily in Antonia’s favor as I
considered giving her a ring.
Twenty-two years later we—with our two teenagers—are still
“doing the jars,” and it’s one of my favorite times of the year.
Sadly, we canned last summer for the first time without Vito,
who had passed away the winter before. But there are still
plenty of us to carry on the tradition. The cast of characters
expands and contracts as we process hundreds of jars over
several days, fulfilling various orders for not only my family
but also Lucia’s in-laws’ family, all of whom emigrated from
Sicily around the same time, 50 years ago. We are usually two
or three generations of relatives, plus a friend or two, including
chefs Dan Richer (from Razza Pizza Artigianale) and Sally
Schneider (James Beard Award–winning author of A New Way
to Cook). Still other chefs who’ve tasted Lucia’s sauce or egg-
plant have asked to come cook with her, including Jonathan
Waxman and Gabrielle Hamilton. Angie Mar
even invited her to come teach her team at
The Beatrice Inn, but Lucia doesn’t get what
all the fuss is about.
Depending on how many 44-pound bush-
els of plum tomatoes we break down in a day
(sometimes six, sometimes 16), we’ll be
working from six in the morning until ...
we’re done. We might not finish before
nightfall, which in August could be 15 hours
after we started. On the best days, however,
when we have a lot of hands, we can have
everything in jars by 2 p.m. and then head
up to Lucia’s air-conditioned dining room—
or, if the temperature is moderate, outside
under her grapevine-covered pergola. There,
we eat a feast that always features spaghetti
tossed in the fresh tomato sauce, a manda-
tory tomato salad, Lucia’s eggplant (of
course, but during the warmer months, she
grills the eggplant), and meats that Lucia
grills and then bathes in olive oil, lemon
juice, and herbs from her garden. Washed
down with ice-cold red wine (which you’ll
want me to name, but it honestly doesn’t
matter), there isn’t a better meal on earth.“He was inviting me to
come can tomatoes with
the family, and I was
thrilled. My own family
used to can when I was a
kid, but when my grand-
father Jim died, the
tradition died with him.”Antonia’s parents, Lucia Rampulla and
Vito LoPresti, share a toast on their
wedding day in Sicily.