Author: Madeleine Regan

Buona Pasqua! Happy Easter from Adelaide!

Following Linda Zamperin nee Tonellato’s lovely blog about her family’s tradition of cooking baccalà and polenta at Easter time, this one is about preserving family customs in the Veneto market gardener community at Lockleys.

The first-generation women and men continued to prepare food and make wine that had been customs in their family households in the Veneto region. Most of the Veneto families grew much of the food they consumed at the table and made their own wine. In the early years women used produce from their market gardens and domestic vegetable plots and orchards, milked cows to make cheese and butter, and they raised chickens.

 

Later, other customs were introduced that signified that the market gardeners had a stronger financial base and could afford to buy a pig to make salami every year. Some families made arrangements with other households for more expensive annual activities such as killing a pig to make salami or buying (and sometimes picking) grapes in bulk to make and bottle wine.

 

 

Jimmy Ballestrin remembers that the customs were very important for his parents.  When he was interviewed by Eleonora Marchioro in June 2011, he recalled that he was going to make salami with his brother and sister the following week:

In those days especially, they all liked to have their glass of wine, and wine wasn’t that easy to come by here in Adelaide, the type of wine they were used to drinking, and also the type of foods that they were used to eating … weren’t readily available. I think it was very important because … you know, there’s always something of home … they liked to keep the lifestyle of their Italian lifestyle,and might I say, perhaps improved on the Italian lifestyle that they had because of the poverty over there …

(Jimmy Ballestrin, OH 872/15, 6 June 2011, p5).

 

Johnny Marchioro remembered his parents’ energy for the seasonal tasks that preserved traditions from Italy:

I think they used to go to Reynella and get their grapes for the wine.  He made a cement tank and when the wine season was – back in would have been April, May – used to get it and we used to squash it, jump in the barrel and squash it by foot, and they’d make our own wine.  Yes, that was like a seasonal thing … you’d make your own tomato sauce and the wine time came you’d make your wine, and wintertime you’d make your own salami, too, for the family.

(Johnny Marchioro, OH 872/1, 21 August 2008, p24).

Families who continue annual food customs such as making tomato sauce and cooking traditional dishes at Easter and Christmas acknowledge that these rituals connect them to their parents and the traditions of their Veneto ancestors.

Christine Rebellato nee Mattiazzo explained in the blog she wrote on the Veneto market gardeners’ website in April 2020, the significance of Easter customs for her family:

Over the years Easter time has been a time for our family to be together to enjoy each other’s company, a time to keep our traditions, a time to enjoy food with a focus on keeping our loved ones alive.
 https://venetimarketgardeners1927.net/polenta-e-baccala-more-than-a-meal/

 

Making wine at home

 

Making wine was a usual autumn activity in many families. It was important for people like Angelo Innocente to make wine every year. Angelo continued this tradition until he was 89 years of age.

 

 

Roma Bordignon nee Zampin remembered the ritual of making the wine in her family and this tradition was something that the local policeman appreciated:

We used to get into the big bucket or whatever it was, and we’d go with our feet andwe’d dance the Tarantella. (laughter] … And [Dad would] say, “Come on girls. Hurry up! We’ve got to make this wine.” So, we’d dance faster.

And the Lockleys policeman at the time, he used to come up to see Gerry, as they called Dad. And he’d say, “How are you going Gerry? Have you made the wine yet?” And he’d say, “Yeah. Would you like a taste?” So, he’d sit down and drink it. He only come up to see him for a drink.

(Roma Bordignon nee Zampin, OH 872/41, 3 February 2017, p 17)

Preserving the Veneto dialect
The preservation of dialect has been an important aspect in some families and it is particularly noticeable in the context of food customs. Many second generation, and in some cases, third-generation veneti have retained Veneto and/or Italian words and phrases to describe traditional foods and dishes. For example, interviewees described different food dishes made in their families including: polenta e baccalà (polenta and stockfish), risi e bisi (rice and peas), carciofi (artichokes) and crostoli (a sweet deep-fried pastry dusted with icing sugar). Some families continue to make these foods today.

People who were interviewed for the project spoke proudly about the ways they maintain a strong connection to the legacy of their Veneto ancestors through preserving customs.

Madeleine Regan
9 April 2023

 

 

I am the eldest child of 4 children (Linda, Raymond, Janet and Diana) born to Mary and Albert Tonellato. I’d like to tell you how our family started and I’ll finish with our tradition of cooking baccalà.

My paternal grandfather, Secondo Tonellato, came to Australia from Caselle di Altivole, Treviso in 1927 to work and prepare for his family to follow him. When nonno arrived, he worked to get money and then he leased and later bought land on Frogmore Road to grow vegetables.

When his wife, Elisabetta, and five children were about to arrive in 1935, Secondo bought a train carriage to use as their home. The famous vagone which had only been used once by the Duke and Duchess of York while he was in South Australia in 1927. My Dad, Albert, was 10 years old when he arrived. He went to school at St Joseph’s Hindmarsh until he was old enough to go to work in a fish shop in Adelaide. After that he worked on his father’s land growing vegetables on Frogmore Road.

My maternal grandfather, Giosue Zoanetti, also arrived in 1927 from Zuclo, Trento. He went to work land at Basket Range until nonna, Metilde, and my mum, Mary, arrived in 1931 when she was 7 years old. She went to school at Basket Range Primary School and then to Norwood High. While at school, mum had many Australian friends and loved cooking using recipes from ‘The Green and Gold Cookery Book.’

Unfortunately, when Italy joined Germany in World War II, Italians in Australia were looked upon as the enemy and anxiety and fear entered the lives of Italians and Anglo Australians. After this happened, Mum recalled how some people treated her differently because she was Italian.

In 1941, the family moved to Fulham as my nonno had leased land there. Sadly, my nonno died in 1943 and nonna and Mary, my mum, moved to another leased property off Grange Road not far from Frogmore Road where Mary met Albert and in 1947 they married.

 

 

So started the Albert and Mary Tonellato family.

 

 

Mum and Dad believed it was important for us, their children, to experience the best of both Anglo Australian and Italian cultures. Mum loved sweets and cooked the best fritelle (fried pastries like doughnuts) and lemon meringue pie. She also baked hot cross buns on Good Friday along with baccalà.

In our family we still cook these foods. As for the baccalà, it was always Mum who cooked it with Dad as her kitchen hand. When we all had our families, it was never a sit-down and eat together meal on Good Friday as Mum preferred us to go mid-morning for a coffee and pick up the baccalà and polenta to take home. About 16 years ago, we decided it was time for us to learn how to cook baccalà. My sisters and sister-in-law, Elaine, all went to Mum and Dad’s house and we watched Mum and documented what she did. The next year we worked from the recipe while Mum watched on adding extra comments if we didn’t get it right and we adjusted our recipe accordingly. The following year we got it right! I still remember that Dad was very proud of us as he quietly told us that it was as good as Mum’s, without Mum hearing.

Every year since then, Ray or my husband, Armando, cut the cod which then gets put in a large tub of water which Elaine changes two or three times a day for four days.

On the Thursday before Easter, we clean and cook the cod in Ray and Elaine’s kitchen and we work all together on their long kitchen bench top sharing a drink and some laughs. When it is cooked each of us takes our share to eat with our families.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dad died on 13 April 2010 and Mum died on 16^th September 2020. For now, our children are happy for us to cook but when we are unable to continue, I am sure they will learn as we did, and so the tradition will continue.

 

Linda Zamperin nee Tonellato
26 March 2023

The Veneto market gardener families were focused on their livelihood – the cultivation and sale of their produce. Their social life centred on their paesani or the other families who were living and working at Lockleys and others in the wider Veneto community. The daughters and sons of the first-generation Veneto market gardeners had broader opportunities to explore a social life independently of their parents. There was a difference in the kinds of activities for the young women and men in the 1950s and 1960s.

Sunday nights – St Patrick’s Hall
The women were more protected than their brothers and were more likely to go to dances held at St Patrick’ Hall in Grote Street on Sunday nights.  Connie Legovich nee Marchioro went to the dances regularly. Sergio Coronica, who had arrived in Adelaide with his parents in 1951, attended the dances regularly. Connie and Sergio recalled that Nevio and Anna Fiocco nee Daminato, an Italian couple living in Adelaide, had started the dances in the mid 1950s to offer regular social occasions for the young single men arriving from Italy in those years. Connie remembered that there were always more men than women at the dances. Live music was provided by three brothers from Vicenza. The cost to enter was 2/- and the dance was held from 7:00 to 10:30 pm. Connie reflected that many marriages resulted from the Sunday night dances at St Patrick’s Hall.

Several people interviewed for the oral history project recalled their experience of attending the St Patrick’s Hall dances and I’ve selected the following excerpts to provide an insight into the social life in the 1950s and 1960s of three daughters in market gardener families at Lockleys.

A new dress every week for the dances
Connie Legovich nee Marchioro was fortunate that her sister, Lina, was a tailoress and made a new dress every week for her to wear to the dances:

And on Sunday nights I’d go to the Italian Church dance at St Patrick’s Grote Street and once a month it was held at the Cathedral in the city, with Assunta. Her married brother would always drive us there and pick us up. Lina would always make me a new dress for each week and when I got home she would ask me if I was the best dressed. Of course I was! At least I thought so. But I did receive lovely compliments from the boys.

(Connie Legovich nee Marchioro, OH 872/11, 10 January 2011, p 5.)

A place to meet your husband
Lena Mosceni nee Rossetto recalls that she loved dancing and met her husband, Claudio, at St Patrick’s Hall.

I met him when I was 18 the first time. Then he went away to Renmark, Broken Hill, he was still a young man and I wasn’t even thinking of marriage then, all I wanted to do was go dancing and going down the beach, and things like that. Then he came back when I was 22, and we met at the dance … at St Patrick’s Church [Grote Street] there, at the back. There was a little hall, very small … We lived close by, we used to walk there and walk home.

(Lena Moscheni nee Rossetto OH 872/32, 28 August 2014, p 4.)

 

From St Patrick’s Hall to other social activities
Assunta Giovannini nee Tonellato had a varied social life which included going to the dances at St Patrick’s Hall, going to the beach and going to see films on a Saturday night with a group of friends who would have dinner at the Bergen, a restaurant in a basement on Hindley Street. There was live music and Johnny Mac, rock and roll and country singer, was the star attraction. (Do you remember his hit, ‘Pink Champagne and a Room of Roses’?

We used to go with Connie, Connie Marchioro. We used to go to the beach, and then Sunday nights we’d go dancing at St Patrick’s or the cathedral. St Patrick’s Church, at the time, had a little hall next to it and so did the cathedral, so one Sunday they’d have a dance at St Patrick’s, and then the next Sunday there’s one at the cathedral. Ten o’clock was closing time so everyone was home by 10.30. [laughs] … you know, that was really late in those days. [laughs]

Later, Assunta went with friends on other outings to the city on Saturday nights

At that time there, now I had another friend and we used to – Norma [Ballestrin] and Pam [Zerella] and Joyce [Zerella] – our big outings were Saturday night to go to the pictures in the city then, and we’d go out for tea, then we’d go to the, I think it was the Shoppers’ Session they used to have. They used to have it about 5 o’clock or something and we’d go to the pictures first, or we’d go for tea first and then go the pictures. That was our outing, you know, on the … that was when we were a little bit older then and … but still, you know, you had to be in early, you know, none of this 11 o’clock, midnight was the latest.

(Assunta Giovannini nee Tonellato, OH 872/6, 15 July 2010, p 13, 17.)

A young man lives for dancing
The sons in Veneto market gardener families had more independence than  daughters and they enjoyed dances at different venues in and near the city of Adelaide.

Dino Piovesan loved dancing and attended lessons. In his interview he recounted the experience of going to several dances in a week. He begins by saying that his mother carefully laid out his clothes – the dances were formal and required suitable attire. He also recalls that he began going to dances at 16 years of age and drove the family market garden truck to the dances but made sure he parked some distance from the dance halls as he wanted to be seen as a serious dancer.

 

I can always remember that when I was going out to a dance or somewhere, my clothes were always laid out on the bed, my shoes were always shined, and mother did it all.

We didn’t have a car and it seemed that driving the truck into the city to go to the dance, was easier than catching a tram and certainly cheaper than catching a taxi but the tram or the bus never occurred to me. I would park the truck, certainly away from the dance hall but it was a means of getting to and from the city and that sort of thing.

There were the old style dances, the Barn dance, the Pride of Erin, the Modern Waltz and the Quickstep but they were more or less the older style of dances to what we know today … with Aubrey Hall of a Friday night there was in the beginning, the first hour, I think there was dancing classes and learning the steps. But from then on it was go and pick up a partner and go and practise dancing … it was all live music in those days … A band, oh yes, yes. And from there we would go to the Palais Royal – a Thursday, I think it was, opposite the Royal Adelaide Hospital, there is a car park there now but it was the Palais Royal.

Then of course, there was the Woodville Town Hall which was, I forget now, might have been of a Saturday night. And the Palais, the Semaphore Palais … I did live for that, I did like going out and dancing but no, occasionally I’d go to the Glenelg Town Hall which was in the Town Hall but rarely [I’d go] there. The Wonderland Ballroom out at Unley, on Unley Road was another venue but only occasionally. No, it would not be three or four times a week, no, no, I would be too tired sometimes too.

(Dino Piovesan, OH 872/17, 23 September 2011, p 7, 44.)

The social lives of young people in the 1950s and 1960s reflect a time that contrasts with leisure time before the advent of Netflix and other streaming services …

Madeleine Regan
12 March 2023