Italian-American Women's Club

Italian Day at the UW-Madison

On Tuesday, March 6, 2007, approximately 50 high school students participated in the annual Italian Day event, held at the UW-Madison campus. The school participants were from Tremper High School, Bradford High School (both from Kenosha) and Trinity Academy from Pewaukee. These high school students are currently taking Italian language courses. To test their proficiency and have fun at the same time, the students participated in Italian language competitions (i.e, poetry, skits and a poster contest). The UW-Madison Department of French and Italian faculty and graduate students provided the judging.

After the competitions, Edward Bowen, Italian Studies graduate student, entertained them with a presentation on contemporary Italian films.

Then, the students learned about making authentic Neapolitan style pizza from Vincenzo Pugliese of the Cafe Porta Alba, 15 N. Bulter Street, Madison. In fact, did you know that the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, founded in Naples, Italy, has established strict guidelines in producing this style of pizza? If pizzerias follow these guidelines and uphold their principles, they are awarded a special certification mark of the Verace Pizza Napoletana (VPN). The Cafe Porta Alba has received this distinction and is a member of the VPN. To find out more about the Cafe Porta Alba, visit http://cafeportaalba.com/pdf/PortaAlbaMenu.pdf

One of the Neapolitan classic pizzas is called la pizza Margherita. It consists of tomato, mozzarella and basil (il pomodoro, la mozzarelle e il basilico). This pizza has the colors of the Italian flag: red, white and green (rosso, bianco e verde). Raffaele Esposito invented this pizza in 1889 in honor of the Italian queen, Margherita, who was the wife of King Umberto I of Savoia.

Now with all the talk of pizza, the students and their teachers walked to the Italian Workmen's Club at 914 Regent Street, Madison, where volunteers from both the Italian Workmen's Club and the Italian-American Women's Club greeted them with a pasta dinner, complete with homemade biscotti (compliments of Susan Troia Bartelt) and Italian bunt cakes (compliments of Sandy Hunter).

The day concluded with an awards ceremony, presented by Giovanna Miceli Jeffries. Students received medals for their participation in the various language competition categories held earlier in the day.

A selection of photos from the day's event include volunteers from the Italian Workmen's Club (Frank Alfano, Tony Bruno and Sam Raimond), volunteers from the Italian-American Women's Club (Mary Troia, Susan Boldt, Toni Smith, Sister Toni Palermo, Rita Prigioni, and Rita's nephew Andrew Godding), selected photos of the students and their teachers, the biscotti and bundt cakes, and the award-winning student posters. Thanks to everyone for making this event a great success.

The photos can be viewed at http://picasaweb.google.com/IAWCMadison/ItalianDay.

Bravi, gli studenti!

This event was sponsored by the UW-Madison Center for European Studies, with generous support from the UW Department of French and Italian, WisItalia, the Italian Workmen's Club and the Italian-American Women's Club.