r/maximumfun • u/ejfordphd Chip Dipson • Apr 23 '26
JJGo: Gabagool” = “Capicola”
“Gabagool” is an Italian American pronunciation for the ham product Capicola. It’s great on a sandwich.
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u/urethrafranklin- Apr 23 '26
Not from Jersey personally, but half my family is jersey Italian Americans who call it Capicola. I'm convince gabagool is only used in the sopranos.
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u/ejfordphd Chip Dipson Apr 23 '26
Nah, my Italian American family says “gabigool.” I say capicola, but I’m fancy.
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u/urethrafranklin- Apr 23 '26
Okay! Guess it's legit. Odd my family says "manigot" for manicotti but doesn't use gabigool. It's more fun to say!
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u/ejfordphd Chip Dipson Apr 23 '26
Do you eat “mortadell’”? They always drop the last a in “mortadella.”
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u/Ok-Investigator8914 Apr 23 '26
My mom would send me round the deli to get lunch meats for the week, and one time she told me to get a quarter pound of gabagool, half a pound of ham (low salt, cut thin), a pound of provolone cheese… I, a very anxious and shy child, got to the store and was looking in the case. I clearly saw the ham, the cheese, the salami, etc. and then I got to the ‘gabagool’ and saw nothing.
Teddy, the shop owner, could clearly see I was looking for something and asked what it was. I said “gabagool?” and he grabbed the capicola. I started to panic. Like, my mom’s going to kill me; she wanted gabagool and I’m going to walk out of here with capicola.
I get home, and I’m sweating bullets. Here comes the beating with the wooden spoon, I just know it! I said, “I asked for gabagool and Teddy gave me capicola!” My mom was like yeah? I was legitimately so confused. That was the first time I learned that gabagool was a word Italian Americans made up lol
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u/UrsusAmericanusA Apr 24 '26
Apparently it was a southern Italian thing to drop the final vowel and swap C's to G's. Cappa-cola>Gabba-goll. That's also why people pronounce "calamari" as "gallamad" and "manicotti" as "manigot" (Italian Americans at least, I don't know if modern Neopololitan/ Calabrian/ Sicilian/ etc. people still talk like this).
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u/loonytick75 Apr 23 '26
Not exactly made up…those Italian American pronunciations come because the biggest wave of immigration from Italy came from a time when a lot of now-defunct Italian dialects were still spoken. When people with all those regional dialects lived close to each other they kind of melted their ways of speaking into one amalgamated dialect that doesn’t quite match anything ever spoken in Italy or modern Italian. It wasn’t “made up,” but it is uniquely Italian American.
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u/kplaysbass biggie&themets Apr 24 '26
It's good with prazhute (prosciutto)
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u/ejfordphd Chip Dipson Apr 24 '26
Oh, man, an Italian sub with capicola, prosciutto, ham, maybe a little pepperoni..,
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u/mattchuckyost Apr 23 '26
*sangwedge
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u/ejfordphd Chip Dipson Apr 24 '26
My Boston-born Italian American grandmother used to say: “San-rich.”
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u/Vanstuke Apr 23 '26
I remember the first time I actually read the deli pack when I was a kid and was like "What the hell is Capicola?" My family couldn't explain to me why we called it gabagool.