- [Announcer] "One Soupy Season" was produced with underwriting support from Sheffield Pharmaceuticals based in New London, Connecticut.

- I'm Dale DeGroff, and it's that time of year again.

It's soupy season in our family here at Westerly, Rhode Island.

(festive Italian music) I come from a large Italian family, and one of the most anticipated days of the calendar year is the first or second Sunday in January when the family gathers together to make soupy, or soppressata.

It began with my grandmother when she was a little girl here in Pierce Street in Westerly, Rhode Island.

This Calabrian tradition, when they slaughtered the pig that day, they put aside the pork shoulder just for this purpose.

It's a quiet celebration of ethnic origins, not just being from Italy, but a particular place in Italy.

And yes, the sausage is good.

It's made from ground pork butts laced with paprika, salt, pepper, and hot pepper.

They hang for a few months in the basement.

They're finally preserved in oil.

A year later, the meat will have shrunk down inside the casing to a chewy essence.

You slice the sausage very thin, and you eat it a little bit at a time.

The first time I ate soupy, it was at a wine tasting given by Dick Pignataro.

Dick's my uncle.

"Dick's Package Store in Westerly, Rhode Island.

He served some fine red Bordeaux from a distinguished vintage, and in truth, the pepper in the sausage was not the best thing for the old wine, but the sausage was so good."

- [Cameraman] Look at this.

Good morning.

- Good morning.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.

- No, this is fun.

This is great.

- I really think you should take one and go.

- [Cameraman] Yeah, get one from underneath.

- I put one a plate for you?

- [Cameraman] Yes, please.

- Yes.

- There you go.

(mellow Italian music) - Dale, that's too much in the morning.

- Well, don't drink it.

- I had two Scotches already this morning.

(Dale laughing) I like this one here.

You know that one?

- I know that one.

(glasses clinking) - Salud.

- Yes.

- To my Uncle Dick, Richard Pignataro, who gave me my first job in the alcohol beverage industry stocking shelves at Dick's Packing store.

(laughing) - [Cousin] He didn't dust them very well.

- Oh, no.

This famous sausage that the family makes, soppressata, or soupy, as we like to call it.

- Right.

- It might have been made from the pig in the backyard.

- Oh, oh, it definitely was.

- Yeah.

- It was a guy who worked for my uncle named Dominic.

Dominic had a coal and oil business.

And Clyde Borough became my best friend 'cause I was his helper.

But Clyde was a big, big guy.

He had to be six seven.

He had to weigh 290 solid pounds.

I'll tell you two things he did.

He would kill the pigs for us.

- Ah.

- So, he'd go out in the, the backyard there.

There's a tree.

Hook it up, right?

He choo, like this.

- Drain the blood.

- And then you'd.

No, drain.

Well, what are you kidding?

- That's again, it's using the blood, right?

- My mother and Aunt Minnie had these great big buckets.

They caught every pint of it.

I ate chocolate pudding for like three years.

I said, mom, this stuff is so.

I used to come home from school, eat this stuff like you couldn't believe.

She says, come and sit down.

Have some more blood pudding.

I said, what?

(Dale laughing) Blood pudding?

Oh, chocolate pudding, chocolate pudding.

I never touched it again.

- [Dale] My memory is that what we made in Nana's kitchen.

- Yeah.

- We were making for Margaret, for Millie, for Donna Nanu because we were there three or four days in a row making like a hundred and something pounds.

- Yeah, 100 pounds.

They did up as much as 300 pounds.

- So, yeah, we were makin' it for the extended family.

- Yeah.

- This green one was my Uncle Jimmy Gallo.

For years, the Gallo family had that, and Jimmy Gallo had that little gray building over there was his one seat barbershop.

Every year, he had a new Cadillac.

(laughing) Yeah.

In the back room of that, he used to take bets on horses and stuff and the numbers and all that kind of foolishness.

So, the place my Uncle Dick was talkin' about where I think the store originally was, is not this house, but the one next to it.

This is Liguori's.

That house, and then there's another house.

And he said that there used to be a store there before this was a store.

- If you went to Liguori's Market, you'd have to stand in line.

- [Dale] And is that where we bought our meat in the early days?

- Yeah, so they gave.

The same shelves are still in there now with the same color on them.

- Yeah, okay.

Well, we still buy our meat there.

You don't.

Where do you buy your meat, if you buy it?

- I'm not tellin' ya.

- Westley prep.

- I know.

- The guy out in.

- Tony gets it for me.

- Oh, okay.

- I don't make it anymore, basically.

- No, I know you don't.

My son does.

He makes it.

- Yeah, yeah, Ricky does.

Yeah, yeah.

Only a few years ago, my great aunts, all four of them in their 90's were the senior members of the group, but they have since passed.

My 87-year-old mom, also passed now, took over the helm directing an enthusiastic crew that included my sisters, myself, my sons, their children, their children's children.

Four generations in fact gathered around a large table in my mother's kitchen.

I'm the oldest generation.

I'm what's left of the family to keep this tradition going forward.

So, I wanna take you through the steps of the making of this marvelous, cured sausage.

(lively Italian music) I'm with Jacqueline, and I wanna ask her a question.

We got a crank mixer, but she insists on mixing it by hand.

Why is that?

(laughing) - Because this the way I was taught.

- Okay, okay.

- My dad does it.

That's how his aunts did it.

That's how their grandmother did it.

So, tryin' to keep the tradition alive.

- That's a good reason to do it, but your hands are cold, aren't they?

(laughing) - It feels good though.

It's like cryotherapy on my hands.

- Well, I'm an old guy.

I'm goin' with a crank mixer because it's easier.

- There you go.

- But how long you been makin' it?

- Ah, my whole life.

Probably since.

- So, the first job you had as a little kid, what was the job?

- Since I could walk probably.

- The first job you had as a little kid, what was it?

This one, or maybe tying it?

- Just watching.

When Aunt Margaret was doing it, I would show up, and I'd hang out with Janelle and Leslie.

And we'd be in the living room while they were mixing it, but I'd pop in every now and then.

- It all goes back to the sisters, Margaret.

- Yep.

- Millie, Rose, they all, and they're brothers too, Richard and Fiore.

- That's the only time I ever remember seeing his brothers is at the table.

- Together, my grandfather and his brother.

- Yeah, at the table makin' the soupy.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, everything was built around food, family, soupy making, and everyone was there.

And the kitchen was what, maybe?

- Tiny.

- Yeah.

- Well, it was like making in my mother's kitchen, you know?

There would be six women sitting around the table, and the men, you know, taking refuge somewhere else.

- Right, exactly.

- Until they were needed to lift and to.

(laughing) - Or to haul, exactly.

And supervise, and then be told what to do next.

- And, you know, as you can see here, there the team really can be three people.

- Yeah.

- And one other person tying.

But you know, when they had seven or eight people, they found a job for everybody.

- Of course.

- I mean, you tie this.

Tie, then pass it.

You tie that tie.

You tie that tie.

(laughing) - And I don't know about you, but I was given the opportunity to fill once.

So, I was at Aunt Margaret's.

- Yeah.

- All our aunts are there.

Millie, Rose, our grandfather, Nanute and his brother.

- We got a little rug rat over here who is the fifth generation, I think?

- Fifth generation.

- Yeah, running around over here.

- Yeah, here's fifth generation.

- Yeah, yeah, huh.

(laughing) - And I was allowed to fill for one intestine, one standeen, as they used to call it, right?

It's a standeen.

And I popped it, broke it, and was immediately declassified to turning.

(Dale laughing) Back to manual labor.

You're not coming in here.

(gentle Italian music) - So, what's happening today, the very early part of the process.

Leo is doing the tying of the, what they call standeens, which are long pieces of beef intestine actually.

He ties one end.

We put the other end up on the little tube here.

We fill this container with the meat, and we grind it and fill those beef casings.

We tie the other end.

Then, we tie the middle.

Then, we tie two of these together, and we hang them over a board, which is in the next room over there, which you will see.

(mellow Italian music) Your great grandchildren, your grandchildren.

- Yeah.

- They're all in on it now, especially after my cousin Bridget died.

- Yeah.

- Bridget was the original maker of me, Bobby, Bridget and my son Leo.

And when Bridget died, suddenly the rest of the family's like, oh, my God, we gotta make Aunt Bridget's soupy.

So, everybody, so Leo, my son, is teaching these little, the children of my first cousins how to tie.

You know, Leo's, he's a very quick study, my son.

He gets everything fast.

He's like your brother Jim.

I wish I could tell you that the processes has remained traditionally the same through generation to generation, but it hasn't.

- Yeah.

- There's people in that room over there right now putting wine in their soppressata, putting spices that we never put in in.

We never put in.

- For Italians, (speaking in Italian).

- They are making it the way they want.

I mean, my cousin, my third cousin or second cousin Dale one year put Pacific Rim spices in his soupy, you know?

- No kidding.

- Why not?

(laughing) - Yeah, yeah, try it.

(chuckling) - Anyway, back to soppressata.

- Yeah, back to soppressata.

- So, you must now have tasted the soppressata that your son made with us.

- Yes, yes.

- And what do you think?

- Very good, yes.

- Oh yeah, thank you, thank you.

- Well, you used the smallest standeen that we did, which is the casing.

- Yeah.

- And I don't know if he used, I never did ask him.

Did you use real ones, or did you get, they call them the artificial ones?

You know what I mean?

- We never used those.

We always used real.

- You did?

Okay.

- And, but they, because were they cows, do you know?

- I think they were, yeah.

- Yeah, probably were.

- They break easy, they said at the time.

That's what my mother used to complain about.

- Yeah.

- They said that the pig's one was stronger.

- So, we're with Angelo Speranza, and Angelo Speranza and his family have been making this for how many years?

- I'm gonna say probably 50, close to 50 years.

- 50 years.

So, I think they know what they're doing.

And you're not just making it for your family.

I saw a few names out there in the garage.

- A couple of my friends.

- A couple of your friends, nice, nice.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I see differences in color and things like that.

So, what you're doing is kind of tailoring it the way different people like it, spicy, not so spicy.

- Not so spicy.

- Color, no color, less color.

- Yeah, and it's all preference.

I mean, you can play with it.

You know, goin' back to the non-paprika, that's more of a salami style, almost like a genoa.

- Still cured though?

- It's still cured.

It does have black pepper, and the black peppercorn in there.

Some people like that for the taste.

And then, you go back to the normal, traditional soupies from the Calabria Calabres style.

They do it with a red paprika.

So, in all different parts of Italy, everyone makes it different.

So, I mean, you start to Calabria.

You work your way up to Rome, you know, and you up to Venice, wherever.

Everyone has their own way of making their soppressata.

(mellow Italian music) - We got a big board on the dining room table, and we dump all the meat in the center.

And we've got the spices in each corner, and we mix 'em in with our hands.

What is this?

- This is a mixer now.

So, it's a power mixer.

It holds up to 100 pounds of meat.

We don't like to stress the machine out so we keep it at the 80 pound mark.

So, two buckets at 40 a piece is 80 pounds, and then we go and mix our salts.

- So, your dad Vincenzo, he's the spice expert.

He's going in with the salt.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

- [Vincenzo] 40 ounce, 40.

- 40 ounces of salt to 80 pounds of meat.

- Got it, got it.

- Okay.

- And Luisa has the ah, measuring by the fist.

This I like.

(man speaking in Italian) - I don't measure the spice.

- They wanna know.

- The people want it hot, okay?

- So, this is gonna be hot.

- Some people don't want.

They don't want it too hot.

They've gotta figure it out.

- Yes, yes.

- Nigel tells me you like it without the paprika.

(Angelo speaking in Italian) - Yeah, I like the soupy because no put paprika.

I started making soupy here on 1975.

My father, my mother.

My mother for how many years, 48 years?

- [Angelo] Yeah.

- I like make soppressata.

My kids do it more and more because I like, I love it.

- [Dale] This is electric.

- It's electric.

(lid clanging) There you go.

Now, he pushes the button here, and it'll go.

Watch out.

It'll spill up a little maybe.

(mixer humming) I got this safe time.

See, now I'm thinkin', you know, you're really old world, and now I'm seein' this.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Which is so smart.

That's interesting.

- [Vincenzo] All right.

- [Dale] Wow, look at that.

- [Cameraman] And tell me about what this means to you and how it sort of is a family tradition.

Tell Dale actually.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, well.

- [Cameraman] You're the youngest generation that's a part of this, right?

- Yeah, it's my family, so I wanna keep it going, you know.

- [Cameraman] Nice, nice.

- I wanna learn how to do all this.

- [Cameraman] Nice.

- And I've been doin' this since like high school.

- Well, I'm 74, and the old ones are all gone now.

So, if it wasn't for me and my son and my nephews, we wouldn't have it.

- Yeah.

- I remember the first time I made soupy.

My God, it was my grandfather and his brother.

When was the first time you, your first memory of this?

- High school, I think.

Mom was like, hey, wanna make 20 bucks, make some soupy?

- Ah.

So, you didn't really care much about it until, you could make a little bread.

- I was like, yeah, in the winter.

So I'm like, yeah, I'll make some money.

- But then when you saw it and tasted it, you said, yeah.

- Now I'm older.

Back then's I'm workin' now so I don't need the money so.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Back then I was like, oh, I need some money.

I'm broke.

- So, I'm guessin' that as a teenager, the farther away you could get from the soupy making the happier you were.

(laughing) - Honestly.

- But what was your job?

- Oh, they wouldn't never let me tie.

No, no, they didn't.

I was too wild of a kid, I mean.

- Yeah, but you.

- I was a gopher.

I would go.

I'd have to go get stuff.

All I remember is we put a lot more fat in it.

Years ago, my mother would cook off, and we'd use it for putting the soupies into so a lot of time we didn't put it in oil.

My father would say, "Dicky, go downstairs "and get a soppressata."

I said, "Nah, Ma, I don't wanna go and put my hand in that."

(Dale laughing) My mother would say, "Dickie, go get the soppressata."

I'd say "Ma, I don't wanna get down there."

My father had, over the bell for the front door was a strap.

He'd say, Hey, strap, get five?

Are we gonna get her a strap?

Are we gonna get her a soupy, or we're not?

He wouldn't talk to me.

He talked to the strap.

The strap.

Are we gonna get it or not?

Now I'm like, go.

- So you had to reach in.

- My brother Jim, he didn't have to do nothin'.

He was the professor.

Hold on, Jimmy can't do it.

He doesn't feel well.

He's reading.

He's reading?

I can read too.

No, no, he's in college.

(mellow Italian music) - Louisa has the most important position in the whole operation.

This lady right here, because the pressure of her hand keeps a tight pack because you can't get air inside of the sausage.

The air will spoil it.

So, the way she holds onto that tube as it's filling is critical.

(machine humming) - That's good.

- Each standeen, or each one of the pork intestines, is already tied on one end when they take it out.

And Vincente ties the other end as soon as they get to the side.

- Vincenzo do everything.

- He does everything.

- He know the job, no?

- He's tying it now, and then he's gonna tie it.

- All the job.

Hold my hand, and we'll see.

- [Dale] You have to leave a long piece so you can hang it, right?

- [Vincenzo] Angelo, I teach Angelo.

- [Dale] Yeah.

- Angelo, he know too, everything.

- If I tie it too, then we can hang it up.

- Okay.

So this standeen, the intestine that she's holding, this has been cleaned over the course of a week or sometimes two weeks in cold water, which you change every single day with lemon peels and orange peels.

You soak it and soak it, and then you turn it inside out, which is a long process because this comes in huge long rolls, the standeen.

And the process of washing it is really critical for obvious reasons because it's an intestine.

So, it's the pressure here and the catch here.

- Yeah, basically.

- You never try it?

You never try it?

- So, I'm doing this.

- Okay, let me signal.

- I've done this before.

Yeah, but I do it.

- Good, keep goin'.

I know it's gonna break.

Tight, tight over here.

A little bit.

Good?

(machine humming) That's good.

Oh.

- Oh.

(Vincenzo laughing) - The, what do you call it?

The agony of defeat.

(laughing) - He tied too much, and you got a break.

- I got it.

I got it.

I broke it.

I couldn't.

I mean, I don't break small ones 'cause I know how to handle it, but I didn't know how to handle the big ones.

You should see and boom.

- Were they cows, do you know?

- I think they're beef, yeah.

- Yeah, probably were.

They break easy they said at the time.

That's what my mother used to complain about in Italian.

(cousin speaking in Italian) - Which means?

(cousin speaks in Italian) - They keep breakin' and breakin'.

the son up every.

- Oh, I see.

- And she'd have to patch it, and she'd take a piece and she'd patch 'em all.

You are patching, right.

And she complained 'cause.

(speaking in Italian) - [Vincenzo] I never do this job, but just watch.

- [Dale] And then you tie this to the other one.

- [Vincenzo] Yeah.

- [Dale] And you got two pair.

You have a pair.

- [Vincenzo] Yeah, make it two.

- [Dale] Right.

- [Vincenzo] Then, put it together.

- Nice.

- Huh?

- Lovely.

- [Cameraman] And what's your favorite part about doing this?

- Eating it.

(everyone laughing) - Everything you put will work.

Everything you do over here, in your standeen here.

- Everything you do will work.

- [Cameraman] And who's got the best?

- Yeah, everybody gotta try mine.

Say they're good.

My brother and sister say mine are good.

- My uncle Dick says that yours is the best.

- Yes, thank you.

You wanna come over here, we got the goods, especially like this one.

- Yes.

- The big one.

The big one, yeah.

(gentle piano music ends) - We now make it in Galesford, and we take that over.

There's no heat in that building in the wintertime.

We take that building over.

We make in their big kitchen.

We take two by fours and hang them between the cabinets that have all the hundreds of plates for the students.

And we hang off of those two by fours.

And then, when it gets too warm, we take 'em down real quick, and we'll put 'em into these huge walk-in boxes, the size of this almost where they can continue until it gets cold again.

So, we have the ability to make sure they don't.

- This is where you're curing them?

- This is where we're curing them also in the same building.

(car door thudding) So, this is the moment right now when we find out whether we're gonna have a party for the rest of the year, or we're gonna lose our $150 of meat.

Leo's been checkin' it out, but this is my first time in, so we're gonna have to cut one open to see if it's ready.

He says it is.

If it's cured enough, and cut it down.

Come on in.

I'll show you what I mean.

Hi, Anne Marie.

- Hi.

- Where's Leo?

In the forest of soupy.

- Soupyville.

- Oh, look at this.

The shrink wrapping.

- Yep, shrink wrap, - Shrink wrapping.

This is not what we do.

We put it under oil, but you like it this way, don't you?

It works.

- I do.

- [Dale] It's a forest.

It's beautiful.

All right, let's go Leo.

- [Leo] Yeah, come take a look at these.

- These are beautiful, man.

I'm telling ya.

And look at this.

A little white mold over here, huh?

This white mold used to grow in my grandmother's basement.

And it changes the flavor of the soupy, but there's only a couple of 'em that have it.

- [Anne Marie] Hey, Dale, what do you think?

- Oh, look at this.

Anne Marie's batch, huh?

- Josh technically, but.

- Oh, look at this.

They're really moist inside and nice and dry on the outside.

- Yeah, feel 'em.

- Mm good.

- They're perfect.

- I love it.

- They are.

- You like it spicy, huh?

- That's the mix Liguori made for us.

- Oh, is it?

Before I disappear into the jungle here, Leo's gonna cut one of ours down, bring it out here, and we're gonna taste it.

This is my first taste.

This is the big, big deal.

(chuckling) (mellow Italian music) Obviously, we gotta get the strings off.

So, that's what we're doin' here.

(strings snapping) Some of these are actually right inside the sausage itself, so we gotta pull them out.

They dried in there.

But I'm an impatient cuss, so I'm gonna go ahead and cut this and taste it and then clean it up later.

Right in the middle, absolutely.

These are goin' home with me for dinner tonight.

- Oh, yeah, look at this.

- One for me.

- Look at that.

- It's beautiful.

That's nice and moist inside.

- That's so soft.

Mm hmm.

- One more.

- Yeah, we'd better taste it again just to make sure.

Get in here.

- Let me try this one, Josh.

(laughing) - This you would.

- Try this one, Josh.

- You would call this sweet as opposed to my cousin's, which was very hot.

- [Josh] Thank you.

- These are beautiful, Leo.

I think we hit the.

This is the best dish.

(mellow Italian music continues) - No, I think I'm ready.

(chuckling) All right, dude.

Oh, my God.

Are you opening Sassicaia?

I thought you saved that for the good people.

- You may be my nephew, but you're not that close.

So, I'm with Little Gascaro workin' with one of the fanciest restaurants in downtown Florence, Italy, right?

Sassicaia had just come out, and that restaurant was featuring it.

So, they got this young sommelier, and he comes out, and he, Sassicaia (speaking in Italian).

He goes on and on.

He talks, right?

So, he's like this.

(bottle banging) Wait, hold that while I get the glasses.

So this young sommelier, he's tellin' us, oh.

(glasses clinking) He's got this, and he's like this.

(bottle banging) (glass clinking) Do you remember why?

- I remember.

- Pour the wine.

The kid turned around, went in, put his coat on, and went home.

- Did he really?

(laughing) I liked Lon.

He was a character.

- A character?

Oh, he was funny.

I said, what the hell are you doing?

You know, smart lawyer.

- If he had modified his intake and his habits and everything, he might've lived longer, but you wouldn't want him around.

(laughing) - No.

- 'Cause he's just.

- Here you go.

- This might be what they made while we were.

(laughing) - This is a fresh one she just made.

- Ooh, it's good.

- Yeah, there's well sweet and hot next to ya.

So, we can pick up some of this maybe sweet.

- Leo made ours very hot 'cause Leo is a little crazy.

So, we started with the Peak Tiffany and the Guama in the cafe.

We're ending here with this amazing, lovely lean Speranza soppressata and who's bread?

- [Dick] A new bakery out of Brooklyn, New York.

- Here we go.

And I just wanna hold this up because it's quite a bit fatter than the ones that we make.

(Dale laughing) She uses the biggest casings.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- But anyway, thank you.

This is an amazing morning.

- Thank you.

Yeah.

- Amazing hospitality.

(glasses clinking) (mellow Italian music) - [Announcer] "One Soupy Season" was produced with underwriting support from Sheffield Pharmaceuticals based in New London, Connecticut.