25 Things Your Italian Grandfather Kept in the Basement

"Upstairs I feel closed in. In the basement I am free." That's how one Italian immigrant homeowner described her house to a researcher studying why so many Italian families built a second kitchen downstairs. Back in Italy, homes with two kitchens were rare. In this countdown, we go through 25 things your Italian grandfather kept in the basement, from the olive oil tins and the jars marked with the year to the soppressata on the rafters, the baccalà bucket, and the wine barrels he was legally allowed to fill during Prohibition. Along the way, you'll meet the boarding-house basement where the Mondavi story began, the Prohibition-era stills that reached hundreds of Chicago homes, and the steamer trunks of the men who decided to stay. Then we go into 1942, when 600,000 Italian immigrants were labeled enemy aliens, radios were taken off kitchen tables, and mothers with sons in uniform had to carry pink ID booklets. And at number one, the room that ties it all together. Sources referenced: Lara Pascali's research on Italian immigrant homes (Winterthur Museum / Calandra Institute). The Congressional Record (2000). KQED. The New England Historical Society. History.com. The Village Voice. The Heinz History Center. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and Community of Gardens archive. The Mob Museum. The Library of Congress. La Voce di New York. L'Italo-Americano. The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Day (Westerly, RI). The William G. Pomeroy Foundation. Food Protection Trends (2011). HistoryLink. Food safety note: homemade vegetables or garlic packed in oil should be refrigerated and eaten within four days, or frozen. Our newly updated ebook: [PASTE EBOOK LINK] Subscribe for more Italian-American history: https://www.youtube.com/@MulberryStreetMemo