Cooking with grandmothers Archives

Cooking with grandmothers Archives - Itch.world

A three-minute escape to Italy.

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December 26, 2018 In Best Of, Chow, Recipes By Nancy

How Santina makes agnolotti

Our reason for wanting to talk with grandmothers about cooking is to delve into a slice of Italian life: the role that nonne play in the family, traditions that are almost lost, and what all that means today, in modern Italy.

When we interviewed Santina about making agnolotti, a traditional Italian filled pasta, our goal was to capture more than just how to make it. Which we did. But those elements did complicate the edit. We decided to create an addendum to yesterday’s video, showing more practically how to actually make this wonderful dish, for those who want to roll up their sleeves.

So, here it is.

December 25, 2018 In Best Of, Chow, Recipes By Nancy

Making pasta with a grandmother

We are starting to develop our series on grandmothers cooking. Curious about what special things grandmothers make for the holidays, we were led to Santina, a pasta-making phenomenon. She always has fresh pasta she has made on hand to give to her family, including grandchildren, and great nieces and nephews. They frequently drop by for meals and keep her informed on the latest news in their lives.

We thought we’d be focusing on how Santina makes a filled pasta, agnolotti, but as is often the case here the people turn out to be more interesting than just what they do. Santina has inspired us to do two videos. This video gives you a sense of her special spirit, the role that a nonna often plays in Italian families, and what Christmas feasts are like in this small village. We wondered if there is a secret that Italian grandmothers have to keep their families legendarily close. We were surprised (and delighted by) the unexpected direction the answer to this question took, because of her wit.

Tomorrow we will share Santina, Part II, with some coaching and hints you need to make agnolotti, or any other fresh pasta, at home.

September 22, 2018 In Chow, Live, Recipes By Nancy

Making gnocchi, and a film, in Italy

John and I have this idea to start filming local grandmothers cooking. A possible way to enter more deeply into Italian life, capture some of the spirit of Tuscan woman, and learn more about food.

We gather some savvy, younger locals and start brainstorming about people we can shoot. The grandmother who hunts? Possible. The grandmother who makes feather whips for the lingerie store? Very possible. For our first shoot we settle on two of our collaborators’ grandmother in a house in the countryside outside of town, complete with a huge watermelon patch.

The morning of the shoot comes. We are prepared to act with military precision, which is the norm for any shoot. The “call time” comes to meet our collaborators and head to the country. The meeting location changes. The start is delayed because breakfast isn’t finished. Their grandmother actually lives in the ancient center of town, not near the watermelon patch at all. We start to get nervous.

We arrive at their house on a tiny street from the 1100s and the grandfather, Franco, jumps into cooking action. Maybe the premise of the video, cooking grandmothers, needs to be reassessed?

Then it all starts to unfold. The constant lesson of Italy. You can predict nothing, control nothing, but just step back and enjoy the gifts of grace, ease, and warmth that the Italians offer. Which more often than not is so much more than you could have possibly imagined or engineered.

Anna, the grandmother, is everywhere in the kitchen at once. This gnocchi pas de deux has clearly happened hundreds of times in their kitchen. Both of them are cooking with a rare ease, barely even looking at the food as they cook.

While Franco forms the dough for the gnocchi, and then shapes and cuts it, he tells us stories about what is was like for families growing up as tenant-farmers in the years before the “economic miracle” of the 1960s (thanks Marshall Plan), with 30 people in a house, hunger, limited mobility, and the Padrone with total power.

The conversation ranges across centuries and topics, and the enormous mound of gnocchi dough melts away. Anna is taking away the cut gnocchi, boiling it, and then rolling it in oil to separate and cool, directly on the marble table.

Soon after we sit down with the extended family to eat. As it has been said before, “And it was good.”

This is, in some ways, one of the most unfiltered films we’ve ever done. It’s as close as we can get you to sitting down in a Tuscan kitchen for a visit. Please let us know what you think of this rawer kind of glimpse. And we hope you learn a lot about gnocchi along the way.

September 7, 2018 In Best Of, Chow, Recipes By Nancy

The pasta we can’t quit (and recipe)

When I want a mini-vacation—and lunch—I head to the sleepy Tuscan hilltop village of Monterchi. In the piazza at the top is one of my favorite family restaurants, Ristorante Al Travato.

It’s only open from-kinda-around-Easter to kinda-around-the-end of October, depending on the weather and the back health of Laura. The family first opens the restaurant on weekends only, then slowly builds, with the heat, to being open most days in summer, and then winds it all back down in the fall. What they do all winter I am not sure, although they’ve hinted it involves skiing.

Marco, Laura’s husband, finds the wines for the cellar—a cave that goes back into the medieval walls—and Laura cooks. Two of their teenage daughters serve (yep, beauties. We can even get our 14-year-old son to eat there whenever we want), while the youngest daughter rides around the square on her small, enviable pink bike.

Our family craves one dish in particular, at least once a week— Spaghetti Aglio, Olio e Pepperoncini—true Tuscan soul food. It’s spaghetti that’s properly al dente, loads of garlic, and a few really hot peppers, all swimming in olive oil.

While it’s simple in its ingredient list, differing opinions of how it should be made abound. You could say of Laura’s (off-menu version): “questo spacca di brutto” (“this chops off the ugly”—I know, the translation doesn’t help me either, but the kids say it means something is a big deal). Best of all for anyone who wants to bring a bit of Italian soul food into their kitchen, it’s easy enough to do tonight with ingredients you probably already have on hand.

Here’s a two-minute video on how Laura makes the definitive Tuscan comfort food.

A cooking note: you’re going to save some of the water from cooking the pasta when you drain off the rest. Also—do this before the pasta has reached the “al dente” (still slightly firm when bitten) state. It will finish cooking when added to the pan with the other ingredients (while the last bit of cooking water helps their flavors go inside the noodles).