FOGLIO DA LAURO

The Laurel Leaf

 

Bay leaf is a flavoring used in cooking, the Italian name is Foglio da Lauro―the Laurel Leaf. This leaf has an interesting history besides its use as a flavoring agent in cooking. In ancient Greece and Rome winners in the Olympic Games, and other forms of competition received as an award—the privilege of wearing a crown of laurel leaves. Many statues of Roman Emperors wear such crowns and on some ancient Roman coins appear the laureate crowned heads of emperors. Our English word baccalaureate meaning the conferring of a bachelor’s degree at college graduation ceremonies derives from the ancient practices.

The Italian word for receiving a degree is laurare. In regard to the baccalaureate exercises, Bacca may refer to Bacchus the god of grape growing, wine and celebration. In ancient depictions of him, he wears a laurel leaf crown. The conferring of a baccalaureate degree is a time for celebration. Dante Alighieri the renowned poet of the renaissance received the award poet laureate, indicating he was a poet worthy to wear a crown of laurel leaves.

The origins of the use of a laurel wreath lie in Greek Mythology; Apollo, the handsome Olympian God and son of Zeus, fell in love with a beautiful nymph named Daphne. Cupid, in revenge for Apollo’s arrogance, struck him with a love arrow and Daphne with one of odium. As the story goes, Daphne, could not reciprocate the feelings of love Apollo had for her and fled from him. In her flight she asked the river god Peneus for help. When Apollo caught up to her and extended his arms to embrace her, Peneus turned her into a laurel tree. Apollo in his despair from his loss of such a love, cut off a branch to wear as a wreath and declared the plant sacred. This myth initiated the presentation of the laurel wreaths to the victors in the Olympic Games to honor Apollo. One would think the opposite since he lost her love rather than to have won it.

Many statues and frescoes of the mythological Apollo exist. Often the title of these statues bear the name Apollo Belvedere, meaning he is pretty to see, bel—pretty and vedere—to see.

The laurel-leaf as a cooking spice is most frequently available in the dried form. One must be careful in using the leaf in recipes, since too much will embitter the dish. Fresh laurel is difficult to come by unless you have a tree in the yard. It is a pretty tree with long straight branches reaching upward with dark green leaves. The fresh leaf when picked and crushed emits a strong pleasing odor and adds a delicious flavor to many dishes. 

The dried leaf is readily available in the grocery store under the name Bay Leaf. But bay leaf becomes confused with Red Bay Leaf. Both have aromatic leaves and are used in cooking. Red bay leaf is Persea Borbonia and different from the common laurel, Laurus Nobilis, which is the one available at the grocery store. Both, are members of the laurel family (Lauraceae). Red Bay Leaf, a bush common to the south, is slowly fading from American forests due to a wilt disease passed on by a non-native insect, the Red Bay Ambrosia Beetle. Fortunately, Laurus Nobilis is not affected.

The following are a painting of Dante wearing a laurel wreath by Sandro Botticelli, a fresco of him in the chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto by Luca Signorelli, and a statue of Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican Museum.

ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

 

The census for the decade of 1850-60 indicated approximately 11,000 Americans listed themselves as having been born in Italy. There are many reasons for this immigration, the political situation in Italy at the time was at the apex of transition from a divided peninsula to a unified nation from among many different powers: the Church, Spain, France, Austria, kingdoms and principalities. Thus, there were many political positions available from which activist could choose.  Consequently, many decided for whatever reasons to immigrate to the United States. Most had the destination of New York City; it was here where they could find people of their own backgrounds speaking their language and other cultural aspects. They had their own schools, when they could afford them, and their own newspapers.

Francesco Secchi de Casale, a political activist who escaped from Italian authorities, found refuge in New York City and funded the publication of L’Europee Americano, the first periodical printed both in English and Italian. It failed and later, it is purported, he sold his watch and wife’s jewelry to fund a different periodical, L’Eco d’Italia, The Echo of Italy. Many considered it the first important Italian language weekly published in the United States. This was the newspaper in which Antonio Meucci, the inventor of the telephone, published news of his invention. And this was prior to his patent court case in the 1880s.

Italians in New York City had to deal with a number of social issues, one was the teaching of Italian and its culture.  Casale sought to raise funds to start an evening school for Italians in the Five Points slum area of New York City. His intentions were to have Italian children receive the opportunity to read and write Italian, develop math skills, and learn about the history of Italy and the United States. Once again another one of his projects did not pan out due to a lack of support. Undaunted, he went on to create another project which was to move Italian immigrants out of the cities and into the farmlands of America.

He attempted to get backing from both the United States and Italian governments, neither one accepted his proposals; consequently, he turned to the business world. Charles Landis, a property developer, donated Twenty acres of land near Vineland, New Jersey, to start a grape farming cooperative. Uniquely, after the Italians cleared the land and planted the grapes, Thomas Barnwell Welch, founder of Welch’s Grape Juice, bought the grapes to produce grape juice which at that time people referred to it as unfermented wine.

While Casale was involved in many social activities, the Civil War was looming in America. For many Italians, Giuseppe Garibaldi was their inspiration. Many conjecture his republican views led many Italians to back the Union cause. Nevertheless, there were Italians in the Confederate army as well, for example a list of 341 Italian male residents of New Orleans is available at http://www.ustica.org/genealogy/italian_brigade.htm.

Francesco Casale spearheaded the formation of an Italian Legion, and later the founding of the Garibaldi Guard. Many like-minded Italians joined Casale such as Luigi Tinelli, a former consul to Portugal and an industrialist, who had experience as a militia commander. Francesco Spinola recruited four regiments in New York, and President Lincoln appointed him as their general. Count Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a veteran of the Crimean War, heroically fought in the Civil War and suffering wounds, capture and imprisonment by the Confederates. (See previous article about Cesnola).

Spinola, a hero, like Cesnola, was engaging in a battle with his Spinola Empire Brigade, when they found themselves in a precarious situation, i.e., they were outnumbered six to one. Spinola ordered his men to fix bayonets and charged the enemy scattering the amazed adversaries before them into disorder.

 

  THE GARIBALDI GUARD

 

The Garibaldi Guard was the nickname of the 39^th New York Infantry, a regiment of Italian-Americans recruited mostly from New York City under the auspices of Francesco Casale and other Italian leaders in the North. Most of the members of this regiment were men who had fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi, the freedom fighter and republican agitator. They wore a distinctive styled red shirt as part of their uniform to show their connection to their countrymen, whose partisans had worn such shirts in Italy. Other Italian nationals joined the guard as well; apparently, out of a feeling that the Union’s cause, matched their own ideals of freedom and equal justice. They also viewed the northern ideology as closely-allied with the aims of Garibaldi and felt such an alliance lent credence to the great patriot’s ideas, since other nations were clearly adopting those ideals.

 

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Societys-Encyclopedia-American/.

 

In the South, especially New Orleans, the biggest seaport, it is not surprising that many Italians landed there. Consequently, with the outbreak of the civil war an Italian contingency developed. A call went out for volunteers and Captain Joseph Santini, a most prominent recruiter, gathered and led a small group of Italian Americans calling themselves the Garibaldi Legion. They too showed their ethnic pride by wearing a hat with plumes of the Italian colors and red shirts as that which Garibaldi’s men wore in the famous, Expedition of the Thousand, when in 1860 a corps of 1000 volunteers, led by Garibaldi, sailed from Genoa and landed in Marsala, Sicily to free the area of the rule of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled by the Bourbons.

Below is a picture of a Garibaldi Legionnaire from the Confederacy and The Garibaldi Guard Marching Troop of he New York 39th Regiment.

 

 

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