A little while ago, my brother Chip and I were talking about one of our mother’s (Grandma Joanne’s) classic Friday meals: tuna, olive oil, and spaghetti. During Lent, this showed up on our table with remarkable regularity.
Although Grandma Joanne, Grandpa Tony, and I had a complicated relationship with the Catholic Church (mostly complicated in the direction of “not fans”), we generally followed the no-meat-on-Friday dictate. At least during Lent. As Grandpa Tony’s WASP girlfriend used to say after Grandma Joanne passed away, we were a family of “cat lickers.”
During our tuna-and-spaghetti discussion, Chip mentioned that Grandma Joanne considered the recipe to be “FLEESCHA FLEESCHC.” Since neither of us has any idea how to spell it, we’re going with that as our best phonetic guess.
To Grandma Joanne, FLEESCHA FLEESCHC described anything that was improvised, slapped together, or done with minimal planning. It could refer to a last-minute dinner, an outfit featuring both stripes and plaid, or a quick cleanup before company arrived. The last example was particularly ironic because she spent years teaching me never to do a half-hearted cleaning job.
Trying to determine the official spelling and meaning of FLEESCHA FLEESCHC has sent me down a rabbit hole that has lasted several months.
My research produced two leading theories.
The first, courtesy of ChatGPT, is that FLEESCHA FLEESCHC may be a family pronunciation of the Italian phrase “fresca fresca,” meaning “freshly made.” Over generations, Italian-American pronunciations have a way of evolving into something that would leave both Italians and Americans equally confused. In that interpretation, the phrase came to mean something made quickly, off the cuff, or with whatever happened to be available in the pantry.
The second theory came from Duck Duck Go, which suggested that FLEESCHA FLEESCHC might be related to the German word Fleischkäse, a type of meat loaf which for an Italian is a thrown together mess! While that’s certainly possible, it seems unlikely that Grandma Joanne was secretly borrowing German culinary terminology while making tuna and spaghetti.
The plot thickens because ChatGPT also suggested another Neapolitan word: arrangià, meaning to improvise or make do with what you have. Frankly, that definition fits Grandma Joanne’s use of FLEESCHA FLEESCHC perfectly.
So what’s the real answer?
I have no idea.
But after all these years, I still know exactly what Grandma Joanne meant when she said it. If dinner appeared out of nowhere, clothes were chosen in the dark, or the house was cleaned just well enough to fool visitors, it was FLEESCHA FLEESCH.
And in our family, that’s probably close enough.
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