By Anthony Colega
If you could describe Salvatore Merante with just one word, what word would that be? Italian, dapper, mustache and sausage are four words that come to mind. Let’s examine why these words will forever be associated with Salvatore Merante, a member of the ISDA Brookline Lodge, who passed away in October 2021 at the age of 90.
ITALIAN
Sal was born in Pentone, Italy and came to America in the early part of the 1950s. Sal viewed America as “the land of opportunity” and kissed the ground when he arrived in New York. Having very little money in his pocket, he eventually made a living for himself by opening Merante Brothers Market with his brother, Italo. Sal never worked for anyone in his lifetime. He was always self-employed and had great success in the grocery business. Of course, you would expect an Italian market to be run by an Italian. Sal was Italian through and through. Sal loved his Italian heritage and celebrated it at every opportunity he had. If there was an Italian festival in Pittsburgh, Sal would be there. Whether it was Italian Day at Kennywood Park, Little Italy Days in the Bloomfield section of Pittsburgh, the St. Anthony festival in Pittsburgh’s strip district, or the Columbus Day parade, you could always count on Sal being there usually carrying the Italian flag down the street (if a parade was part of the festivities).
One year Sal had taken a trip to Italy and missed Little Italy Days in Pittsburgh. After he returned to Pittsburgh, certain people he ran into wondered if he was sick since they did not see him at the festival. Sal had become such a “fixture” at these events, you always expected to see him there. Because Sal loved being around people, he also was a regular attendee at Pittsburgh’s Fourth of July celebration, and the Pittsburgh Regatta. Sal was so well-known around Pittsburgh that the former mayor, Bill Peduto, decided to include Sal in one of his campaign television commercials. Many people believe that the presence of Sal in that commercial helped Peduto get elected! Sal loved America, Pittsburgh and especially the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, where he lived for most of his life. He was a great ambassador always singing the praises of Oakland and Pittsburgh to anyone who would ask.
DAPPER
As the pictures accompanying this article show, Sal was always impeccably dressed whenever you saw him out and about. His constant dress code was a shirt and tie, sport coat, dress slacks, dress shoes, and a fedora hat. If it was a hot day, he might leave the tie at home, and he would take the sport coat off and carry it over his shoulder as he walked around. To the best of my knowledge, Sal never owned a pair of jeans. But the hat was one of Sal’s “trademarks” since very few men wear fedoras anymore. The only time you might catch a glimpse of Sal not wearing his hat was if you saw him in church. Sal said that he always liked to be nicely dressed.
MUSTACHE
His mustache was truly Sal’s #1 most distinguishing feature. As you can see in the pictures, it is a large, well-groomed handlebar mustache. Sal had a mustache since he was 15 years old (yes, I did say 15)! There were certain times when he shaved it off, but for most of his life, the mustache was always there. And what a mustache it was! Sal has repeatedly won awards at best mustache competitions in the Pittsburgh area and had the certificates to prove it.
SAUSAGE
The most famous item for sale at Sal’s grocery markets over the years has been his hot sausage. While helping his mother to make sausage as a young boy in Italy, Sal learned the secrets and proper methods for making delicious hot sausage. When Sal and his brother operated their Italian market, Sal’s sausage was always a hot selling item (no pun intended). When Sal closed his store on Marion Street in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood, he continued to make his sausage there behind closed doors and brought it to his nieces’ store, Groceria Merante, in Oakland where it would be sold. The nieces decided to call it “Uncle Sal’s Italian Sausage”. Because of that, Sal began to be affectionately addressed as “Uncle Sal” by many people that he was not related to.
I even had Sal listed in my cell phone contacts as “Uncle Sal”. If you watch the Legacy video in which Sal is interviewed, he says that he makes his sausage “picante” … hot & spicy, in other words. When he says this, watch closely for that little smile on his face because he knows that it can be a challenge for some people to deal with the heat level of his sausage. Let me relate a personal anecdote.
The first time I ever cooked Uncle Sal’s hot sausage, it was in the middle of winter. As I cooked it on the stove, the kitchen began to fill with the scents and spices coming off the sausage and I began to cough and choke. My kitchen does not have an exhaust fan. Since it was winter and it was cold outside, I didn’t want to open a window, but I had to eventually give in and open one because Sal’s “picante” spices were too overwhelming to breath in. But, when it was time to eat the sausage, it was delicious beyond description! I like hot, spicy food and Sal’s sausage fit the bill perfectly! It was hot, the way I like it, but not so hot that it blew your eyeballs out. Besides making hot sausage, Sal was also an expert on making soppressata. This is how I first met Sal. I was invited to a sopressata-making party at a friend’s house in 2014. Here is a link if you want to read the article that relates to that. As I mention in the article, there were many college professors assisting with the sopressata production that day. So, Sal liked to call himself the “professore di salsiccia” (professor of sausage) because he truly was the expert on all things sausage-related!
SAL’S FINAL COLUMBUS DAY PARADE
As Sal started to develop health issues in his later years, he was not able to go to the Italian festivals that he was always known to attend. For example, Sal had not missed Italian Day at Kennywood Park in over 30 years and when he was no longer able to attend, this troubled him greatly. Sal passed away on Sunday, October 3rd, 2021. The Columbus Day parade in the Bloomfield section of Pittsburgh took place on Saturday, October 9th, 2021. The proximity of his death to the Columbus Day parade was ironically fortuitous. As I mentioned previosuly, Sal was a frequent participant in the parade as he always carried the flag. With Sal gone, it was our turn to lift up Sal. The Calabria Club had a banner made in tribute to Sal and invited anyone who had a connection to Sal to march with them as they carried this banner down the parade route.
Because of that invitation, I got to march with the Calabria Club along with some of Sal’s friends, relatives and the bartenders and servers from The Garage Door Saloon in Oakland where Sal was a regular. (Sal did not go there to drink, but because Sal loved being around people, he just liked to hang out there with his dog, Dino, and talk to people.) As we marched down the street carrying the banner, something happened that I will never forget. As people standing on the sidewalk saw Sal’s picture on the banner, they started to applaud.
Some may have never even known Sal’s name; he may just have been known as “the guy with the mustache”. Many people standing and watching the parade probably did not realize that he had died. Many were probably expecting to see Sal carrying the flag as he always did. But then when they saw the banner and realized that he had passed, they gave Sal the ultimate tribute by applauding while standing there in silence. They applauded because of who he was and what he stood for. They applauded because they loved seeing him around Pittsburgh. They applauded because they loved the way he dressed or loved his mustache. They applauded because they loved his hot sausage. But they mainly applauded because as the banner says, Sal was “A Pittsburgh Legend” the likes of which we will probably never see again. Rest in peace, Uncle Sal, we love you and we miss you.
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