Trunzo Bros

My father is a butcher, as was his father, as was his father’s father. I am not a butcher, although sometimes I think it would be better if I were.   Family tradition is one of the most sacred elements of Italian heritage, and any break in tradition is almost deemed a detriment to legacy. See, my father, Francesco Aurelio Trunzo, and his brother Pasquale immigrated to America and opened Trunzo Bros.  Meat Market & Salumeria in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn over 30 years ago—way before I was even born. Some of my earliest childhood memories, as well as my most recent, revolve around iceboxes, meat cleavers, kitchens and delis.

Living on Staten Island, it was always exciting when my mother took me and my brothers to visit my father at work on Saturday afternoons. It was a glorious time for Bensonhurst Italians: 18th Avenue (Italians’ Bensonhurst stronghold) was flooded with clubs, cafés, Cadillacs and wiseguys. At the time I had no idea what was going on, but there was always something strange about the thick-accented guineas in shiny suits. In hindsight, I never really thought much of the pinstriped paisans, they were just a small part of the atmosphere.


In the late- 80s, early- 90s, it felt like all of Bensonhurst gathered at my father’s store to buy their Sunday dinner meats, pasta, sauce etcetera. Every Brooklyn or Staten Island Italian I’ve ever met shopped at Trunzo Bros. at least once in their lifetime—to this day I meet some of my friends’ parents and the first thing they ask me is, “Are you Frank’s son?” The store was always packed to the gills, and it would literally take five minutes to navigate from the front door to the butcher room, the entire time wrestling through crowds of Italian-speaking little old ladies while trying not to knock over an entire shelf of packaged pasta in the process.

The icebox was always my favorite part of the store. There was nothing better in the entire world than punching a dead animal on a hook—my father taught me how to right cross a veal shank at the age of eight (I was convinced I had one up on Rocky; I mean, I was eight). By the time I was 10, I was a weekend regular at the Brooklyn and Manhattan meat market terminals. Waking up at 4:30 a.m. was a small sacrifice I was willing to take for the opportunity to stick my hand in buckets of cow brain and watch the deliveries from the slaughter houses get chopped up. I always had the best stories for the day after Take Your Kid to Work Day: “Wow Johnny, it must have been real cool to play with that calculator while your dad crunched numbers, all I got to do was play catch with a rabbit’s leg while my father de-boned pig ass…”
   
Don’t think it was all barbaric—catering was a big thing back then. Christenings, birthdays, graduations, weddings and anniversaries were like red carpet galas, fully equipped with cocktail hours, hors d’ouevres, appetizers, entrees and desserts. Of course my father catered every party, and why not? Everyone attended every function and was grateful to be there, plus my father loved watching the family mange like royalty. Looking for leftovers? Good luck. We sometimes left the Cotillion Terrace on 73rd Street looking as if it were ransacked by marauding heathens. But they loved us; we gave them a lot of business.
   
Not much has changed since those days. Sure, the neighborhood has become a bit more diverse, but, dare I say, everyone loves good Italian food!  I began to notice this at the age of 15, when I first helped my father as an extra hand in the kitchen on the weekends.  The environment at Trunzo Bros. is too fast paced for a youngin’ with no experience to jump into, so I started off slow; frying potato croquettes and riceballs, chopping vegetables, flattening chicken cutlets, and running errands were my daily duties. Nothing very exciting, but work nonetheless. Within a year or two, however, I jumped into the other dimensions of the kitchen—the cooking, baking and catering. Soon enough, I was a bona fide chef, master of the machete and capable of running the kitchen on my own. My kitchen skills always impress my friends; my roommates love when I cook a good Sunday sauce, and they always come over to my house on Staten Island for the holidays, when there is enough food to feed a family of wolves for a week.

The winter holidays are the best time of year at the store: the catering orders swell, the icebox packs out and the deli line wraps around the store. Everyone pitches in a little extra to make it work—12 to 15 hour days are not uncommon, with the kitchen and butcher staff coming in as early as 5 a.m. to get a jump start on the delivery orders.  Christmas trees and nativities sets become part of the store’s décor, placed in front of the hanging sausage and cheese. Our deli men wear shirts and ties under their work jackets—my uncle Pasquale is very particular about this. Holiday specialties are made ad infinitum:  pizza rustica, spinach pie, aneletti al forno, penne matriciana and my personal favorite, a simple steak pizzaiola with some scungili.  We make about 50 lbs. of fresh mozzarella a day, every day, for the week leading up to Christmas—just mention fresh mozzarella to some people and they lose it, it’s one of those things you can’t even explain, like why I never made it into the meat department with the butchers.


I guess I never wanted to be a butcher in the first place; it’s just not my vibe. Working in the kitchen on weekends is just my fulfillment of the tacit oath of maintaining my heritage. Truth is my father was happy I didn’t find my way with the butchers—forget legacy and all that jazz. No matter what way you cut it—long hours, back-breaking labor and dangerous conditions—he didn’t want me to be a butcher anyway. 

Visit the Zagat Rated Trunzo Bros. Meat Market & Salumeria at 6802 18th Ave, Brooklyn or at www.trunzobros.com