The Feast of San Gennaro: Calzones and Cliches

Last weekend I went to the Feast of San Gennaro, the patron saint of sausage and peppers, in Little Italy. 

Yes, after a summer spent yelling at oblivious tourists on the Brooklyn Bridge and avoiding the same, roving street fair that appears every weekend on a different street, I thought "You know what I could go for? Some questionable street food, cultural stereotypes, and a slow-moving, obnoxious throng of people. That sounds like a perfect Sunday to me."

You're goin' down, Fanucci...    

Actually, I thought the Feast of San Gennaro might be as charming as it was pictured in The Godfather II, where Vito Corleone takes advantage of the commotion on the street to assassinate his rival, Don Fanucci. 

Oh, hi. Yea, I'll take three oranges and a banana.

Never one to neglect vitamin C, Vito also takes the time to pick up some oranges.






                                                                                                        

Must...buy.... oranges....

Interestingly, Vito Corleone is himself shot down when buying oranges in Little Italy years later.

Lessons learned from The Godfather:

1) Oranges are a sign of death

2) Anyone dressed like a dandy in a white suit has got it coming

3) the Feast of San Gennaro is a family-friendly event.

Anyway, I was excited to see religious statues paraded down the streets of Little Italy, sample some Cannoli, and to take down my own rival, the Whole Foods Cheesemonger, should the opportunity arise.

Unfortunately, none of these things happened. What is worse, the festival turned out to be the human equivalent of what the cast of Jersey Shore might have purged after one too many strawberry daquiris. In fact, I may have seen the cast of the Jersey Shore there, doing just that. 


But let's not focus on the negative. The festival was the place to be if you like sausages, peppers, and sausages and peppers in buns.

Suck it, Pluto! You're no longer a planet!

The festival had a secondary agenda (apart from sausages and peppers) as the pentultimate convention on cannoli superlatives. Cannoli makers from far and wide competed to one-up each other on whose cannolis were the biggest, the best, and the most original.

Cannoli size accurate in relation to man in background.

Frankly, I dont care who made what first when I'm ingesting ricotta-filled fried dough, but apparently this is a crucial point to some, worth staking reputations over.







Other highlights included humans dressed circus monkeys, and one very greedy saint.

 

But I digress, the real reason I put up with all of this was to visit the food stand of Torrisi Italian Specialties, a trendy new restaurant--ironically or not-- located in the old neighborhood and decorated like your grandmother's sitting room. They were serving Italian specialties with a Chinese touch-- a refreshingly gourmet change from the sausages, peppers, and strawberry daquiris.



On the menu were wok-fried mozzarella sticks, creme puffs (asian?), and a roast pork sandwich with a chinese-style steam bun, spicy glazed pork, and broccoli rabe on it. I appreciated the thought that went into this sandwich-- it did hit both asian and italian notes-- as well as the whole concept of the stand, with its chinese lanterns and big sign that read "Italian food" in chinese characters.

  But more than that, I appreciated that Torrisi was trying to do something different while still participating in the festival tradition. Nevermind that it took me 30 minutes to walk 4 blocks up Mulberry street, past hundreds of Snooki clones and culturally offensive t-shirts-- this pork sandwich was worth it. This sandwich was the hero of the night.