il mucca

i’m the vice president of my society this semester. a job that entails many things- the most important being planning a dating outing for 35 couples. this year’s outing is saturday, nov. 7 (this weekend!) and the theme is vendetta: dinner with the mafia.  so i’ve been doing a lot of research, and i thought now would be a good time to sort of summarize that bright spots.

1. even if it’s not perfectly authentic, my favorite way to make cannoli shells is with a pizzelle iron instead of frying them. ‘what does this have to do with mafia research?’ you ask? only everything. because who spends hours learning about the mafia without craving italian food? not i, said the girl. not i.

2. In the late 1800s, Bayer Pharmaceutical sold heroin and aspirin, marketing them as powerful painkillers. By 1913, heroin’s addictive properties were discovered and it was prohibited in 1919. So thousands of heroin addicts turned to the mafia, which supplied them with the drug, and the infamous “Pizza Connection” was eventually born.

3. “Hit the mattresses” is a legitimate mafia phrase meaning “prepare for battle”. It refers to a feud between two crime ‘families’. And you thought Coppola made that one up.

4. When he was arrested for income tax evasion in 1931, Al Capone was allegedly making about 100 million a year.

5. um. i can’t think of a number 5. it’s a little depressing to see hours of research reduced to four random factoids. oh well.

time to go procure some more cannoli.