In 2019, I got an Italian grandmother for Christmas. Her name is Maria Volont\u00e0 and she\u2019ll be 100 years old in February. We\u2019re not related by blood; and were strangers the day she first cooked me her Christmas Eve chickpea casserole, the same day she declared she was going to be my nonna now.<\/p>\n
When Nonna Maria adopted me as her new pseudo-granddaughter, I was in my own late nonna\u2019s native Calabria, at the tip of the toe of the Italian boot, on a research trip through its fascinating Greek-speaking enclave. I was writing a novel set in this region during the Christmas season of 1960. Trekking through the December sun-soaked hillsides from village to thousand-year-old cobblestoned village, I would sit down with elders in their 80s and 90s, witnesses to the history I was trying to record.<\/p>\n
Related: How Writing ‘The Sicilian Inheritance’ Led Jo Piazza to Investigate a Murder in the Family<\/a><\/p>\n Nonna Maria and her daughter, architect Antonella Casile, were referred to me by a friend of an acquaintance. I arrived at their house in Bova Marina at 2 p.m. with my notebook and my voice recorder, expecting I would stay perhaps two hours. (Yes, I had the absurd notion I was going to leave without dinner \u2014 almost like I had never met an Italian grandmother before). In the courtyard was a lemon tree groaning with fruit. December was early for lemons, but they were already bigger than my hand.<\/p>\n The nonagenarian who greeted me was not quite as tall as my chest, with black eyes set deep in a poignant spiral of worry lines, and such beatific grace in her expression that she made me think of the Virgin Mary statues in the many nearby churches. Maria, with her steel trap memory and musical speaking voice, proved to be the key I had been searching for to unlock the past.<\/p>\n courtesy of Juliet Grames<\/p>\n Maria and Juliet Grames<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n She shared her memories, proverbs, poems and songs in her native Greco. We had only been chatting for a few hours when she suddenly reached across the table and grabbed my hand. \u201cDo you still have your nonna?\u201d she asked me. I had, in fact, lost my Italian grandmother one year earlier, when she was 98.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I am your nonna now,\u201d Maria said, then added with charming humility, \u201cif that\u2019s all right.\u201d<\/p>\n This precious friendship would bring me much solace over the panicked years of the pandemic we didn\u2019t know was about to arrive \u2014 when my family would particularly cherish Maria\u2019s hard-earned wisdom about surviving scarcity, finding joy in simplicity and connecting with others through spontaneous generosity.<\/p>\n Related: ‘There Will Be Lumpia:’ What Mom’s Food Says About Love and Family (Exclusive) <\/a><\/p>\n When supermarket shelves were at their emptiest, Maria suggested delicious sustenance staples from her impoverished childhood \u2014 polenta with roasted garlic; brothy pasta with a single egg cracked in it for protein \u2014 a reminder that you don\u2019t need luxury to be nourished and satisfied. As 2020 marched on and lockdown unfolded, she reminded me that the reason we have holidays at all is because before our cushy modern era, treats were rare; a celebration once required labor and planning. Maria taught me how to reignite holiday joy by appreciating the old-fashioned loving labor involved in keeping traditions alive.<\/p>\n courtesy of Juliet Grames<\/p>\n Maria ladles chickpeas<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n I was allowed to leave that night at 11 p.m. only on the promise that I would come back the next day for \u201csomething very special.\u201d That turned out to be a chickpea casserole typically served on Christmas Eve, \u201cla Vigilia,\u201d a vegetarian feast for a holiday when no meat is allowed before midnight mass. My family\u2019s holiday traditions now include Maria\u2019s new \u2014 and very old \u2014 recipe for chickpea casserole, bestowed upon me by my new, and very old, nonna. The casserole has proven a vegetarian-friendly crowd-pleaser, hearty and elemental and hot and comforting, proof that what\u2019s most ancient is sometimes also what\u2019s most modern.<\/p>\n And after dinner, I was gently kidnapped, forced to take up residency with the mother-daughter duo for the duration of my two-week stay. Each evening, Maria stood at her stove, her 10 decades heavy in the stoop of her shoulders as she saut\u00e9ed pan-softened pasta for the scholars and folk musicians who dropped by to visit. Watching Maria\u2019s vibrant, patient generosity, the relentless charisma of a nonna at the height of her powers, was a balm on my still-grieving heart.<\/p>\n Related: Loving My Mother by Stepping Into Her Closet: ‘Addiction Was Part of Her, but She Was Much More Than That’ (Exclusive)<\/a><\/p>\n Over the years that would follow when we couldn\u2019t visit each other, Antonella kept us in touch by WhatsApp. I wrote my novel, The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia<\/em><\/a>, with my two Calabrian advisors looking over my shoulder, continuing my rigorous Greco cultural education as they sent me instructional videos for cooking Greco delicacies and demanded I respond with videos of my own to prove I was doing it the right way. I was honored to use their names for main characters in my novel about their beautiful, secret corner of the world.<\/p>\n Alfred A. Knopf<\/p>\n ‘The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia’ by Juliet Grames<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Traditions are sacred because we make them sacred. Connecting with our heritage can bring us joy, but connecting with someone else\u2019s heritage can be just as joyful, a gift to compliment our own precious traditions and brightening our commitment to them. We can choose to make new traditions sacred in the same way we can choose to make friends into family.<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer , from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia<\/em><\/a> by Juliet Grames is available now, wherever books are sold.<\/p>\n Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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