Italian-American Herald - December 2024

LOCAL HISTORY
Italian POWs
built their own
church in Pa.
PAGE 3
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DECEMBER 2024 $3.00
Vol. 11 / No. 12
A MONTHLY NEWSPAPER SERVING THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
Touring the world
bringing new life
to old music By Ken Mammarella
It’s hard to define City Rhythm.
The Philadelphia-based institution,
which was founded in 1979 by sax players
Pete Spina and Nick Vallerio, is both an
11-member party band and a 17-member
orchestra.
Its repertoire has thousands of songs,
with many arrangements by Spina. The
music includes jazz (“Vibrant Tones” was
named one of Jazzweek’s Top 50 CDs for
2005), Italian crooners like Frank Sinatra;
modern stars like Rihanna and Bruno Mars;
Motown, swing and big-band classics; the
blues and funk “sound of Philadelphia” from
the 1970s; and even “music to spy by.”
Its performance spaces include weddings
and other parties, but also cultural events
like St. Nicholas of Tolentine’s annual Italian-
American Festival in South Philadelphia
and the Feast of San Gennaro in New York,
music festivals, appearances with standup
See CITY RHYTHM - page 14
WWW.ITALIANAMERICANHERALD.COM
The first Christmas
Ancient Roman celebrations live on in present-day customs
A Saturnalia festival by artist David Teniers painted between 1650 and 1660.
By Jeanne Cannavo
In 336 A.D, the Roman Emperor
Constantine decided to honor the birth
and teachings of Jesus Christ as Romans
honored the God Saturn during the pagan
feast of Saturnalia. This feast day had been
celebrated long before the birth of Christ.
By the first century B.C. it was an annual
rite which took place from Dec. 17-23 and
by 217 B.C. it had become a major holiday.
During this celebration people exchanged
gifts of candles, food and money. They
played games and gambled, held great feasts
offering food and drink both in private
and public. It was also a time of year when
masters and servants could switch roles and,
for a brief period, pretend to be someone
they were not.
It is unknown why Constantine chose
this time to honor Jesus, but it may have
been tied to the “suffering servant passages”
from Isaiah (45:52-53) which detailed a
“righteous servant” who suffered, died, and
then was resurrected by God to share his
throne. With this new decree Constantine
hoped to reunite the people of Rome at a
time when the empire was falling apart.
See CHRISTMAS - page 4
Savoring history: How Italian cuisine
morphed into a global phenomenon
By Alessandra Mirra
When asked to think about Italian food,
people imagine the sight of tomatoes, basil
and olive oil blending together on a warm
bruschetta, or the steam rising from a plate
of homemade pasta, or the aroma of freshly
brewed coffee wafting from a moka pot.
Italian cuisine, much like Italy itself, is a
feast for the senses – yet, its biggest secret
lies in its mesmerizing simplicity! But
the story of Italian cuisine is not merely
a decalogue of ingredients and recipes,
but rather a complex mosaic of distinct
regional identities bound together by a
common philosophical approach to food –
a mosaic that narrates the peninsula’s rich
cultural, political, and social evolution.
But how did Italy’s food evolve from an
ensemble of humble regional specialties to
Everyone - Italian or not - agrees gnocchi are
best when made by hand.
See ITALIAN FOOD - page 10