Growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in the 1960s and 70s, Daniel Paterna was well aware of the sweeping yet often inaccurate stereotype of his Italian-American enclave. “In my household, my parents frowned on the clichés of the Italian-American gangster or buffoon,” Paterna says. “It was an earnest way of life: no guns, no mafia, no dead bodies, no drugs. Music, food, and family — that was our story.”
And many years later, after graduating from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he studied graphic design and photography before entering the workforce as a creative director, Paterna was inspired to reflect on the story of his family and community while living on his own in Boston.
“When I was in Boston I became acutely aware of the process, the love, the representation, the meaning that all of this had to me. What became an identity of where and how I became who I am,” he says. “Living away from home gave me a greater wide shot of the landscape from which I came. I tried to cook a lot of what my mom cooked. I realized that many of the recipes were not documented, although she was the only family that did, but they were not documented to the point of translating handfuls to a measurement.”
Feast of the Seven Fishes features stories, photos, and more that document the Italian-American experience in Brooklyn. Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Paterna
After returning to Brooklyn, this mission of documentation and redemption originated with a short article, “The Feast of Seven Fishes,” for a food blog. Paterna showed the article to a friend and neighbor, who was also a publisher, Daniel Power of powerHouse Books. A collaboration began, over the course of a few years, in the development of a hybrid narrative of recipes and anecdotes from Paterna’s family history in Bensonhurst abetted by features of local shop owners (a few not dedicated to food; a few beyond the immediate auspices). The result was Feast of the Seven Fishes: A Brooklyn Italian’s Recipes Celebrating Food & Family (powerHouse Books, 2019).
The physical book, bound in a cover that juxtaposes a sepia-toned dining image with a cheeky shot of a stuffed calamaro, is printed in Italy and features an introduction by chef Michael Lomonaco and a foreword by Brooklynite actor/producer John Turturro. In hardcover only and at a whopping 255 pages, this hefty tome, big enough to pound cutlets, features 60 recipes — both from Paterna’s family and the “go-to shops” — many organized around the major Italian eating holidays of Christmas and Easter but with plenty of year-round options for recreating the Italian-American culinary experience in Brooklyn.
The book is a mélange of memoir and tradition and local color. The B side of Bensorhurst on full parade. Equally on display is Paterna’s talents as a storyteller through clear, elegant prose aching with nostalgia and beauty, along with his original photographs and those culled from archives. Feast of Seven Fishes belongs on a coffee table, its physical majesty consistent with the profound reverence and redemption found within.
“I wanted to continue my Mother’s legacy written on her recipe cards by creating a book highlighting how shared memory of food draws upon and enriches our souls,” Paterna says.
Mission accomplished.
Daniel Paterna, author of Feast of the Seven Fishes.