The San Gennaro festival is an annual festival held in Little Italy in New York city, its historical context is that it is the original location where Italians moved in when they migrated to New York, and every year there is a feast during the middle of September where traditional Italian foods are served along with foods of other countries from Europe like Portugal
I went on September 18 to the festival along with my friends, we stopped at bleaker street and the feast was held not too far from there, when we entered it was a sort of a bazaar where people were selling things like bracelets, chains and shirts of soccer teams from all over Italy, like Inter Milan and Juventus, when we went more inside that’s when there were a lot of different types of Italian Foods like pasta, cannoli’s and also some Portuguese types of foods called “pasteis de nata” which were very delicious. There was also an Opera going on which was very interesting, they were playing traditional Italian songs which were an interesting and unique experience. I also went on a Ferris wheel which was fun, despite its height not being high, and just walking around, looking at a lot of different types of foods I have never seen before, and as a person who loves food it really interested me.
In conclusion, although this was definitely a very interesting experience as it was something which I had never experienced before, I was a bit disappointed as I believe it was heavily ‘Americanized’ as although there were different types of Italian Foods, it was mainly things like Pizza and Pasta, but all in all it was a very memorable and entertaining experience and I will most definitely visit the festival again once it comes around again next year.
