EATING OUR FEELINGS
Kat Romanow Pane Toscano by COREY MINTZ
FOOD HISTORIAN Kat Romanow fell so in love with chopped liver and chal- lah that she became a Jew. “I converted, not for a partner, but because of food,” says Romanow, co- founder of The Wandering Chew, a Jewish food culture project. “Food is what got me into Judaism.” Romanow had been studying religion and anthropology at Concordia Uni- versity when the idea of focusing on Jewish food, improbably, grabbed hold of her. She had grown up Catholic and was raised in an Italian family — why not study either of those? “I have my theories about why I didn’t go that way,” says Romanow, hesitating a moment before explaining a painful crossroads in her family’s history. Romanow’s maternal great-grandfather, Donato Monaco, immigrated to Can- ada from Italy in the 1920s. In 1932, along with brothers Vincenzo and Antonio, he opened the Corona Bakery, baking bread and pizza, and delivering it around Montreal by horse. On June 10, 1940, as Mussolini was declaring war against Britain and France, Vincenzo was making his rounds. Vincenzo was arrested by the RCMP and his horse left to wander the streets, cart in tow. The three brothers were sent to an internment camp in Petawawa, Ontario. Like some 24,000 Japanese Canadians, German Canadians, and Italian Canadians, the Monacos were held under the War Measures Act, suspected of being fascist sympathizers and denied the right to trial.
FOOD/PROP STYLING/PHOTOGRAPHY MARISA CURATOLO
5786 ף ֶֹר חו 45
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