The Feast of San Gennaro

     On Sunday the 11 day Feast of San Gennaro will come to a conclusion in Little Italy, NYC.  It is quite an amazing event, part celebration of faith and part block party.  As you may recall, San Gennaro is the Patron Saint of Naples and in the lower Manhattan neighborhood which served as the first home in America for hundreds of thousands of Italian immigrants  each year their spirit and faith is celebrated with religious processions, colorful parades, musical entertainment and lots and lots of great ethnic food to go around.

 

     I had hoped to experience all the festivities of the opening day of the celebration and to witness the cannoli eating competition, but bad weather caused me to delay my cultural research there until the following day, Friday the 13th.  That proved to be a lucky day for me as I made my way down Mulberry Street to witness the festivities for myself.  On both sides of the street and down many of the side streets there were vendors eagerly and enthusiastically preparing just about every Italian food ever created.  There were also games of chance for those in attendance to test their skill.

    

 

     That Friday evening there was also a strolling brass band of Italian troubadours who struck up the theme from the movie "Godfather" on one corner.

 

    

     But in an attempt to separate myself from all the noise and commotion I ducked into a dark cafe for dinner.  I'm not sure of the name, since my receipt had one name printed on the top and my credit card slip said another.  But that didn't really matter since my meal was one of the absolute best seafood dinners I can recall.  Lots of shrimp were nestled along side calamari that cradled grilled salmon and pesce azzuro, a whole imported Italian bluefish.  The huge serving plate was barely able to contain it all, including a half steamed lobster.  All the misto frutti de mare was perched on an immense bed of roasted potatoes and broccoli.

 

     I thanked my server from Rome profusely for such a warm welcome and learned a new vocabulary word.  Abbodanza! It means plentiful in Italian.