Growing up near Boston, elements of Italian-American culture were threaded through much of Liz Fitzgerald’s life. Every Christmas Eve, her uncle would visit her family’s home to celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes, bringing dishes like stuffed shrimp, calamari and clam chowder, while her aunts poured batter into steaming irons to make the crispy, waffle-like Italian cookies called pizelle.
Her father’s contribution was always a ricotta pie from a local Italian bakery. The family traces their Italian roots to her great-grandfather, Angelo, who was born in 1890 near Naples and arrived in the United States in 1909. He didn’t naturalize as a US citizen until 1945, several years after Fitzgerald’s father was born.
