Black Coffee Afternoons on Myrtle Avenue

Before iced double cappuccinos to go, before home espresso machines and automatic-drip coffee-makers, before automobiles and telephones, perhaps before the wheel, there was my grandmother’s coffee.

The Sicilians called their coffee cafe niuru, black coffee, not because it was served without cream but because it was brewed from dark-roasted, oily, rich beans. In former times, my grandmother Carolina roasted beans at home in the oven of her coal stove on Brooklyn’s Ellery Street.

Many immigrants did the same because the available beans, more lightly roasted, did not produce coffee black and bitter enough for their taste. The Italian American custom of serving lemon peel with espresso to heighten the bitter flavor began at this time.

By the time I was a boy, in the 1950s, Carolina no longer roasted her own beans because the proper product was readily available in markets. She still, however, ground the coffee in an old hand-cranked coffee grinder. She held the box between her knees, cranking with her right hand as she added just the right amount of beans with her left.

The method my grandmother used to make her coffee is as old as the beverage itself. She’d put the grounds directly into boiling water and return the mixture to a boil. She’d then pour it through a fine-mesh strainer into a large cup. The resulting beverage was black, thick and robust, with a golden layer on top. Moments after pouring, the gold would turn into tiny rainbow bubbles and then disappear into the blackness, as if by magic.

At breakfast, the strained coffee was heated with an equal amount of milk and a little sugar, turning it into cafe francisi, French coffee. It accompanied slices of Italian bread left over from the previous night’s dinner, toasted and served with butter and strawberry jam. My usual breakfast beverage was a cup of hot milk with a little sugar and a macchia--”a stain”--of my grandmother’s robust black coffee.

The aroma of cafe niuru was the first thing I smelled in the morning. Its glorious aroma gently roused me from sleep, providing me with a sense of security and well-being; it let me know that all was as it should be.

That smell still brings me back to our kitchen on Myrtle Avenue, to snowy mornings when we’d huddle around the radio to learn if school was closed. On hot, sunny summer mornings, it conjured images of Africa, the place I’d learned in school that coffee originates.

Every afternoon, my grandmother had women friends and relatives in for a cup of her delicious brew. Over the years, the coffee had become the raison d’e^tre for a daily event far more profound than a coffee klatch. Gossip had its place, but more important, my grandmother’s kitchen was a meeting place where women of the neighborhood shared their lives. It provided a forum for medical and marital advice and information about pregnancy, birthing and child care. It was the first place to visit after a honeymoon and the first outing for mothers with new babies.

It was also the place where women whose entire families were illiterate took their letters from Sicily to be read. It was here that they learned the happy news of the intended emigration of a loved one or the tragedy of the death of a close relative across the sea. The other women shared in their joy and comforted them in their sorrow, and Carolina wrote out the dictated responses.

When my mother, aunts and uncles were children, teachers from the grade school across the street from their home on Ellery Street would stop for a cup of cafe niuru. Although these women were mostly “American” and didn’t know Sicilian, they understood the camaraderie and compassion of this sisterhood.

By the time I was a boy, this meeting had been in session for more than 50 years. In the afternoons, when my grandfather was at the clubbu, the women gathered around our oilcloth-covered kitchen table. They shared news, gossiped or just sat quietly enjoying their coffee, thankful for the break in their still busy household schedules.

In the year or so before I entered the first grade, I enjoyed being a silent party to these afternoon gatherings. I would play with some mechanical toy or other on the kitchen floor, seemingly uninterested but attentive to every word and gesture. As far as the women were concerned, I was still a baby, and they felt no need to censor their activity.

I marked the delicacy with which the ladies drank their coffee and ate their biscotti. One had a most remarkable dunking technique. She’d hold the cookie over the cup, spooning the coffee over a section of it until it reached the desired saturation. Using her teaspoon as a sort of safety net to prevent the fragile moistened cookie from falling, she would carefully lift it to her mouth.

Sometimes I would position myself under the table, a great vantage point to see under the ladies’ dresses. My interest was by no means sexual. It was mechanical. To me, the tangle of garter clips, straps and girdles was as wondrous an architecture as that of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The regulars numbered about eight, including my grandmother’s cousin Angelina Termini, her friend Nana Rosa, and our next-door neighbor Minnie. Angelina, the daughter of my grandmother’s first cousin, was considerably younger than Carolina, but she bore the old-fashioned manner of a peer. Her broad smile and steady goodness inspired reassurance.

To this day, Angelina maintains the family’s oral history. She always brought news of family members on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a large bakery bag of Sicilian ladyfingers, called taralli, my grandmother’s favorite cookie.

Nana Rosa was a woman of advanced years. A widow for a long time by then, she wore the blackest of dresses. Rosa stood 4 feet 8 inches tall and was endowed with enormous breasts. She’d arrive a bit winded from climbing the two flights of stairs to our apartment. As she sat down, she’d lift her breasts with a sigh and rest them on the kitchen table in front of her.

Minnie was much younger than the other women. She was a bit underweight, with a pale complexion and dark hair. Having grown up in the neighborhood, she spoke fluent Sicilian with a Minsk accent. Everyone marveled at this result of cross-culturalism in immigrant Brooklyn.

She and her husband, Maxie, lived next door on the ground floor in the apartment behind a tile shop. It had been Maxie’s kosher butcher shop until the untimely death of his mother sent him into a deep depression. As a result, he had tried to commit suicide with one of his butcher knives. To avoid further tragedy, the shop closed, and Maxie found employment as a clerk, away from sharp objects.

Minnie was as devoted to her observance of Judaism as the other women were to Roman Catholicism. In a profound effort to overcome the disappointments created by her husband’s depression, Minnie always found the humor in any situation, no matter how grim, and we all admired her ability to sift nonsense from what was truly important.

Neither the cold of winter nor the swelter of summer ever prevented the women from meeting in our kitchen. One particularly bitter winter’s day, the women could speak of nothing but the weather. They turned over their sleeves and hems to show the number of layers they had worn against the chill. Minnie displayed her protection, her husband’s fire-engine-red long johns. Everyone laughed at this particularly unfeminine attire. When Minnie hitched one side of her full woolen skirt to her belt and posed in her baggy red flannels with her arms over her head, like a Spanish dancer, everyone laughed even louder.

My grandmother began to grind the coffee. The sound of the old cast-iron mechanism scraping against the coffee beans set up a Moorish rhythm. To this accompaniment and in that costume, Minnie began prancing around the kitchen like Carmen. She hummed her way through the habanera. When she reached the chorus of “‘Amour, Amour,” the only words of the aria she knew, she nearly sent the other women off their chairs.

Soon most of the other women had joined Minnie on the kitchen dance floor, prancing about and warbling out the tune. My grandmother and Angelina had all they could do to keep old Nana Rosa from getting up with the others, but she finally agreed to stay with them on the sidelines and clap out the rhythm. The room was afire with the sheer rapture of a dozen Carmens strutting their stuff.

Suddenly the door opened and my grandfather, his hatted head still down against the cold, stepped into the kitchen. He lifted his eyes just in time to catch the last moment of this spectacle, as the women, acutely aware of his presence, hurried back to the table and their coffee.

Papa Andrea bade everyone a good afternoon and made his way to the living room to sit down and read his paper, as if he had witnessed nothing. The women took up the same pretense, firmly assuring one another that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. During this whispered discussion, Minnie shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, “So what!”

Later on, after the other women had left, I overheard a conversation between my grandparents. Innocently, but at the same time with a wry smile on his face, Papa Andrea inquired, “Carolina, my dear, is this what you and these other women have been doing in the afternoon for all these years?”

It was 1953, and my grandparents had been married 47 years. Carolina had given birth to 11 children, including two sets of twins, on the kitchen table, the hardness of that surface making it easier for her to push. Five of these children had tragically died in infancy. The other six had been raised in very close quarters on a shoestring budget. Carolina had nursed their illnesses, made their clothes, done the wash and maintained an immaculate household. She had found time to instruct her children in religion and instill in them a strong sense of morality, charity and generosity.

Even after all those years and all those shared experiences, Carolina and Andrea maintained an ignorance concerning what went on in meetings of the opposite sex. They took great pleasure in sustaining this mystery, an integral part of their 19th century social code.

Carolina responded to Andrea with the same wry smile and feigned innocence. “Of course, my dear Andrea, only this, and a cup of cafe niuru.”

SICILIAN LADYFINGERS (Taralli)

These cookies were the favorite of my grandmother and her friends. Their delicate flavor and light, airy texture make them perfect for dunking in coffee or milk. Don’t hold them in the liquid too long, though, or pieces will break off and fall in. Taralli are what these cookies are called in Polizzi Generosa. Throughout the rest of Sicily and Italy, they are called savoiardi. For centuries, powdered eggshell was the secret ingredient of pastry chefs for keeping beaten egg whites from collapsing. I first learned this secret from my grandfather. To prepare an eggshell for this purpose, peel away and discard the inner lining of the shell, wash it with warm water and let it dry thoroughly. Keep it in a small jar and pulverize a small piece as needed with a mortar and pestle or between two spoons. The shell will keep for many years, and one egg’s worth is enough for many batches. This recipe may be doubled, but it’s best to try the single recipe first to become familiar with the process and with the texture of the batter.

1/2 cup flour, plus more for dusting baking sheet

3 eggs, separated

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon powdered eggshell or pinch cream of tartar

Butter, for greasing baking sheet

Powdered sugar

Double-sift flour and set aside.

Beat egg yolks with sugar by hand or with electric mixer until mixture is pale yellow and forms ribbons. Mix in vanilla. While continuing to beat, add small amount of flour. When flour is absorbed, add little more. Continue in this manner until all flour has been beaten in and absorbed.

Beat egg whites in clean, grease-free bowl, copper if possible. When they are frothy, add powdered eggshell. Continue to beat until whites are stiff and form high peaks but are not dry. Vigorously beat about 1/3 of stiffened egg whites into egg yolk mixture to loosen it. Quickly but gently fold remaining egg whites into yolk mixture with rubber spatula. If frothy structure of batter begins to collapse, stop folding.

Put batter in pastry bag fitted with 1-inch plain round tip. Pipe batter onto lightly buttered and floured baking sheet in 5-inch-long cookies, separated by distance equal to their width. Thoroughly dust each cookie with thin layer of powdered sugar. Wait until sugar has been absorbed, about 5 minutes, then dust them again. When second sugar coating has been absorbed, bake cookies on rack placed in upper third of 350-degree oven until pale golden on top, 10 to 12 minutes.

Remove cookies with metal spatula and transfer to rack to cool and let harden several hours.

About 12 cookies. Each cookie:

68 calories; 33 mg sodium; 53 mg cholesterol; 1 gram fat; 12 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 0.01 gram fiber.

CAFE NIURU

The women of my grandmother’s circle drank their “black magic” out of large coffee cups. Demitasse cups were far too fussy for them. These delicate little china cups sometimes could leave their high cupboard for more formal occasions, but usually just for routine cleaning. To make cafe francisi--French coffee--reheat the strained coffee with an equal amount of milk and 2 teaspoons sugar.

7 ounces plus 2 teaspoons spring water

2 rounded tablespoons regular-grind espresso or decaf espresso

Sugar

Bring 7 ounces water to boil, turn off heat and stir in coffee. Bring coffee to boil over low heat. Turn it off just before it overflows pot or when boiling vigorously.

Add remaining 2 teaspoons cold water. This will cause grinds to fall to bottom of pot. Pour coffee through small fine-mesh strainer into cup. Serve with sugar to taste.

1 (6-ounce) cup. Each cup:

28 calories; 4 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 fat; 5 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.01 gram fiber.

* Antique coffer grinder from Nothing Sacred on Mission Street, South Pasadena.