Pomato Revival

I’m not one to obsess over the day I have kids. I’m excited about it eventually, yes, but I’ve tried not to latch on to ideals of how I plan to raise them, or what I swear I will or will not do as the perfect parent. Lord knows I’ll probably start messing up my kids the first day we meet, in those subtle ways we never realize. I’m okay with that.

But I have thought a lot about the things I’d like for my kids to associate with me. I don’t mean when I’m dead or anything. Just little things that will make them think of me. For example, the smell of sautéing garlic and parsley brings me straight to my parents’ kitchen. Oil of Olay on a freshly washed face is my mom completely.

I never intended for this to be a food blog. The world already had enough of those, and many truly amazing ones at that. But when I think of family, culture, and traditions, it’s impossible not to come back to food. Even when it starts off not being about food, when you peel back the layers to figure out what really made something special, it starts and ends with just that. It’s usually not the food itself, but the people behind it. The special way a mother or grandmother made a dish and then taught her daughters and granddaughters. The effort we put into learning, perfecting, passing on, and starting our own versions of a tradition. When you think of the time we spend around tables, chopping, kneading, pureeing, talking and laughing with the people who know us best (for better or worse), it’s easy to see how entire cultures can form in kitchens.

Pane, Cipuda, and Cheese is what got me thinking about all of this. Because I want to tell you about it—it’s delicious—but it’s not really about the food. It’s everything this dish (if you can even call it that) evokes. These three simple items Pane (bread) Cipuda (onion) and Cheese, for me, represent:

• Farm life in Sicily at times when there wasn’t much to eat, especially when you’re the help;

• Long hot days laying tar on Brooklyn streets, when my grandfather would bring this for lunch (minus the cipuda, perhaps, on especially hot days);

• Bored summer afternoons as a kid, when I was too picky to eat anything but tasty raw onions and cheese with a good hunk of Semolina bread;

• A reminder that our family cannot get their languages straight. Older generations call this Pane e Tumatsu (bread and cheese), but I guess they tried Americanizing it for us kids and threw in the Cheese reference. The cipuda part is straight-up Sicilian. Pane is Italian. We managed to squeeze in three languages in a simple three-word snack. This is perfectly normal.

Someone must have told me many stories about pane, cipuda, and cheese, because when I eat it I’m always picturing someone in another life with their bread, salty cheese with peppercorn, and onion slice. I see young road workers, leaning on a car’s bumper during their break, sweating and biting into a loaf. Little farm girls resting under the shade of an awning with their lunch. And now I even see my younger self, sitting at our kitchen table after a tantrum, devouring an entire raw onion in one sitting. It’s one of the only things that would shut me up. I picture each of us eating alone on a quiet day, when we don’t have the time, resources, or desire for anything else.

The only way to eat this is in hunk form. That is, a hunk each of crusty bread, salty cheese, and onion. There’s no slicing to make a sandwich or piling little pieces to make a crostini. Just take a bite of one, then another, then the last, and chew all together. My mom would suggest adding grapes and/or sardines to the mix, which I’d very much agree with.

This isn’t one of those meals families have slaved to perfect and pass on, but it’s woven into us all the same. Even when we’re not together around the table, we’re connected in our smelly, salty, and doughy ways.

Some of my favorite traditions are the simplest ones: Wine-and-cheese dinners on my birthday; grilling sausage at midnight at family parties (no matter what time of year); playing cards with my grandparents on Christmas Eve. These rituals will often sneak up in tiny bursts, just when I’ve almost forgotten how great they are.

One that I often forget-then-remember at just the right times is my dad’s wine and peaches. This little number still emerges at holiday dinners and occasional family barbecues. The meal winds down as fruit trays and nut bowls replace dinner dishes. Wine glasses stay put, although most are abandoned as people wander from their place at the table. The men usually stay to argue and crack nuts while the ladies make coffee and kids escape to other rooms.

My dad isn’t much of a talker, so it isn’t unusual for him to sit back, listen to the banter, and just eat fruit. As a kid, this is when I’d end up on his lap. And it’s how I was introduced to his legendary wine and peaches. It’s as easy as it sounds: Peel a peach, cut it up, and plop the pieces in a glass of wine.

You might call this a lazy person’s sangria, but it’s hardly that. Nothing should interfere with the simplicity of a peach wedge soaked in red wine. Just try it. No rum, no berries cluttering things up. Just tart fruit and inexpensive table wine. It’s the only way I was allowed to consume wine as a child, and it never occurred that I might want it in any other context. The Fourth of July version requires a plastic Dixie cup for full effect. You can do this at Christmas, too, if you don’t mind out-of-season fruit. Just fancy it up with a proper wine goblet.