Making Soupy

Most families and cultures have their own Christmas customs, honed over the years to the perfection of a jeweled ornament. This year I had a chance to celebrate someone else’s tradition. On Wednesday, thanks to the Garafola family of Bradford – and Bill Lucey, our publisher, for inviting me along – I was allowed to participate in a winter ritual native to Rhode Island, or more particularly, the town of Westerly: Making soupy.

Which is how I ended up with my hands buried in pork butts and carrying raw sausage from closet to cooler and sausage casings from kitchen to basement. Short for soppressata, soupy is a cured sausage mixed with secret herbs and spices – every family has their own you-die-if-you-discover-it recipe – that hangs over winter and is ready to eat by the following Easter. The Garafolas, a friendly bunch, put up with my intrusion and inexperience, allowing me to work the drill that fed the meat into a synthetic casing managed by the family’s patriarch, Lou, whose touch is amazing to watch. If I had any say in such matters at all, I’d bestow upon him the title of soupy maestro.

The tradition dates back to a town in Calabria, the birthplace of many Italian immigrants who settled in Westerly around 1900 to work the granite quarries as stonemasons. Now Westerly is the soupy capital of the world, while just across the river, in neighboring Pawcatuck, Conn., settled by Sicilians, hardly anyone makes it. In fact, it is a food so identified with the families and villages of Westerly that many lifelong Rhode Islanders have never heard of it, much less tasted it. (Although Pat Garafola, the family matriarch, said that you can get a white soupy in Providence. The Westerly version is red.)

Every family thinks they make the best soupy, of course, which is how it should be. The sausages are passed on at Easter to family (at least family that is still on speaking terms) and close friends. Our own family Christmas tradition includes a South African Mixed Grill, made by my father, who usually combines a bit of steak, back bacon and sausage to eggs over easy, fried potatoes, tomatoes and banana, with baked beans and toast. This year the sausage will be soupy, before the curing.

What are your family traditions for Christmas, New Year or any of the winter holidays?

[Note: Publishing a bit earlier than usually since Monday is the official holiday. Same next week. Expect a pre-New Year’s Day post on Friday. Merry Christmas!]