Wednesday, November 30, 2022
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Dr. Ed Iannuccilli
I have had wonderful opportunities to speak to several organizations, and for that, I am most appreciative. The most often asked questions are about how I began to write, my experiences growing up in an American Italian three-family home, my neighborhood, and what happened to the disappearing Sunday dinner. (The title of my second book is “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner?”).
Your queries have incentivized me to begin a few articles on the Sunday dinner, its value, and in some instances, too many in fact, its demise as we knew it. What is its origin?
There are several theories about the origin of the Sunday dinner, one being that a Sunday roast originated during the reign of King Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor dynasty, in 1485. His yeomen warders, royal bodyguards, were known as beefeaters because of their love of eating roasted beef. They dined on beef every Sunday after church, a day of worship and rest . . . and feasting.
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The tradition has also been part of the culture of many English-speaking countries. For example, in Ireland, the Sunday roast consisted of roast beef or chicken, potatoes, carrots, green vegetables and gravy.
In medieval times, the village serfs served the squire six days a week and had Sundays to themselves. So, they celebrated with a dinner of their own on their day of rest.
Why Sunday? It was in part spiritual because Sunday was a day of worship. People found the time and the opportunity to have meaningful conversations over food with no other distractions. The benefit of being together with several generations, . . . parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents. And It was the best meal of the week.
Even today in Britain, the Sunday roast ranks high among the things people love most and is the very heart of British culture. It’s considered the time for families or friends to get together and share great food.
Throughout the Industrial Age, almost every household would pop a roast on before heading to church on a Sunday. It had become an act of social importance.
And so too in all of Europe did this tradition expand. It is likely that the roots of an Italian Sunday dinner were the same. Sunday was a day of rest, a time for hard-working families to get out of the fields and enjoy time together, over a meal that had no interruptions. It was an abundance of food compared to what they were used to on a daily basis.
Next week. How this tradition became a critical part of Italian culture in America, and what it meant to me. We were never invited to Sunday dinner at Grandma’s. It was just something we did, as predictable as getting out of bed every weekday morning for school. But this day was different. This was a weekly rhythm, much like the drum beat in a marching band.
Oh, the aromas when we opened the door.
Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.” NOW, he has written his fourth book “A Whole Bunch of 500 Word Stories.”
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Dining and Cooking