Giving thanks with a rabbit

My father Giovanni started hunting at age 12, in 1904, high in the Apennine Mountains of Agnone, Mouse, Italy. He continued his favorite sport in the Youngstown area into his eighties.

My father’s goal was to put food on our Great Depression holiday table at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I anxiously awaited his return from his hunting trips. A bulge in the back of his hunting jacket meant he had bagged at least one rabbit from an area Kinsman or Andover farm, his favorite hunting grounds.

Ring neck pheasant

My uncle Antonio Lacivita, my father’s older brother, owned a car and hunting dog, and was the other half of the team. My father owned a 16-gauge double-barrel shotgun, while my uncle had a 12-gauge pump gun. I don’t remember them ever shooting a wild turkey, but they occasionally brought home a prize ring neck pheasant.

I was first introduced to turkey meat in 1943, as a U.S. Navy sailor. We ate turkey at both Thanksgiving and Christmas. A most memorable Thanksgiving was that of 1944, while our ship, the U.S.S. LST 582, was anchored in the harbor of hot and humid Hollandia, New Guinea. I walked by our ship’s freezer locker and our cooks were taking out wooden crates of frozen turkeys. There was an eye opener date stamped on the crates, it was 1942. They would soon be defrosted after a long sleep.

Today frozen turkeys are an everyday food. Our standard Great Depression holiday fare was “rabbit cacciatore.” Today one of my favorite restaurant meals is “chicken cacciatore.” I never heard of “turkey cacciatore.” The word cacciatore means hunter in Italian.

Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and an inductee into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.