NONNAS

I am a Nonna and I know other Nonnas.

I have been a chef for many years. I am also a teacher.

As a chef and a teacher I have been following techniques, measurements, proportions. Nothing wrong in that. Just, as the majority of you, I was wondering how my aunt, my grandmather, my mother could cook without following any recipe. Or better, any written formula ( recipe, in Italian “ricetta”, means “formula”), if not the intuition given by their senses. Who has never heard a Nonna saying phrases like: a pinch of this, an handuful of that, as long as it takes…. ?

Maria Vittoria with her daughter Gaia

Growing “Nonna”, I have earned the estimation for these Nonnas who know the “how” even if they don’t know the “why”. They don’t know the chemistry behind cooking transformations, but they know what happens and how, depending the way they move the hands.

I underestimated – or maybe we all underestimated – the work of the Grandmothers, and yet, my mother cooked every day, twice a day, and put on the table tasty dishes and, in their simplicity, always different.

I have underestimated the awarness of her phisical senses, her coordination, the timing, the capability to create delicacies with a little money.

Now I ( and You all, as well), have the possibility to cook with a Nonna from the countryside of Tuscany, to see how “authentic” ingredients look and how they “behave” with mechanical actions, by mixing with other ingrediends and under the effect of the heat. We all have the possibility to “train” our palate, to fill our soul with the wonderful landscape of Tuscan hills, and to experiment joy in the mouth.

Some years ago I wrote this post:

INFORMED PALATE

In winter at the fireplace, in summer in the garden

We will give you all the information on how spend a day in our common memory.