One of my favorite stories that I share about my childhood is when we ate our pet bunny for Easter. I know this may sound horrific, and granted- it was disturbing at the time, but in retrospect, it is by far one of my favorite childhood memories to share.
Being Italian has a lot of perks. I know how to cook. I’ve grown up with amazing food my whole life. I have over 30 first cousins and most of us are very close. Our holidays are filled with love and laughter. My home growing up was spotless. My grandparents lived with us. The list goes on and on. Yet, Italians tend to view things a lot differently from “normal” people. I use the term “normal” to describe anyone American or not Italian. Growing up, whenever I would reference a family that did not have two parents who were born and raised in Italy, I called them “normal”. Not until you are a first generation American child of Italian immigrant parents, do you understand how different you are from your American friends.
Sure, our curfew was 9 pm when we were 17 years old. Yes, I was never, ever allowed to go to a sleep over (unless, of course, it was one of my cousins). And it’s true that my father announced my first period with pride in front of my entire extended family. Just comes with the territory.
Insert Italian accent here: “Anna is a woman now…” Sigh.
So, it doesn’t come as any surprise that we had a lot of pets growing up. I think my parents are big fans of pets because they grew up with farm animals. My mother always recalls how she would love and care for their pigs, and then on slaughter day, my grandfather would warn her so she could hide. She would run far away into the fields so she couldn’t hear any of it. It’s kind of hard to imagine being a farm girl in the mountains of Setti Fratti, Italy when you grew up in Fairfield County, CT. Crazy part is that my parents are young. In their early 50’s- and this was still their childhood.
Anyway, so we had a rabbit. My brother, sister and I had very poor imaginations, so we would usually just name our pets whatever colors they were. Hence, Blackie, our dog…. (he was black)… or Stripes, our cat… (it had stripes)… or Whitey, our bird… (yeah, you can figure this out). So our bunny was named Snowball because of course it was white… and fat… and we already had an animal named Whitey. Poor Snowball had no idea that being fat would eventually cause his demise. No one wanted to take care of Snowball because his cage smelled.
As Easter came around, Snowball disappeared. We were told he ran away. As usual, we ate our rabbit during Easter dinner. (For the “normal” people out there, it’s very common for Italians to eat rabbit- just as common as you may eat chicken). A few weeks later, the jokes started and being the young Sherlock Holmes we were, we put two and two together. We had eaten Snowball. My father did not deny it. My sister refused to ever eat meat again.
Ironically, becoming a grandfather does strange things to a man. Someone dropped off nine rabbits at my father’s house this week. Obviously, they were not dropped off as pets, but to be eaten. My father instructed my mother not to let my daughter, Hayden, see these rabbits. He couldn’t stand the thought of having to explain to her where they had gone which she would inevitably ask after they were killed. The next morning I get a call from my Mom. Bring Hayden over, they were going to play with the rabbits and then set them free. I kid you not. Off she went to see “Nonno’s rabbits”, and as promised she set them free. Her imitation of them “hopping away to their Mommy’s and Daddy’s” is hilarious. My father couldn’t do it. Becoming a grandfather made him soft. Today, I stopped by and saw my Uncle roaming around the house. I asked what he was doing- He said he was leaving some food in the yard, because some of the rabbits were still around. Who are these people?
So, times have changed. My father has changed. But to this day, I still love the look on “normal” people’s faces when I tell them we ate our pet rabbit. Thank God that Italians don’t eat dogs or cats. I think only the Chinese do that.
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