In January 1920, the United States entered Prohibition. Back then, newspapers framed it as a clean break with the past, a reform that would close saloons and change daily habits. In many Italian homes in California, though, the most noticeable change was not what disappeared from the table but what …moved into the house.
To understand how and why the events unfolded the way they did, we need to explain that wine, in those Italian-American households, did not function as a barroom drink; rather, it was part of meals, often diluted with water, served in small glasses, and treated as a food accompaniment. So, when legal sales stopped, families adjusted their routines to make sure they neither broke the law nor had to renounce their glass of wine with lunch.
