A MEETING OF MINDS

Food writer in residence PART 1

RECIPES ELEONORA GALASSO PHOTOGRAPHS DAVID LOFTUS FOOD STYLING JEN BEDLOE STYLING DAVINA PERKINS

We’re pleased to Welcome Eleonora Galasso as our second writer in residence. She’s passionate about the history of Italy’s cuisine, as well as its future, and loves nothing more than getting together with food-loving friends to cook, eat and share stories about culture and food. Chef Gennaro Contaldo is one of those friends, and we joined them for an afternoon of recipe-sharing in the kitchen

residency.

My great-grandmother, nonna La, taught me that one’s approach to cooking is akin to one’s approach to life. I remember being in her kitchen and watching as she layered up a lasagne. Realising there was too little bechamel, she simply said: ‘Not to worry dear. Everything can be sorted in the kitchen, as long as the dish speaks for itself.’ What emerged from the oven an hour later looked beautiful, tasted glorious and was gratefully received. She’d made the dish work with what she had. It was a life lesson, as well as a cooking lesson, and has stuck with me since.

Nonna La couldn’t have known that her love and care in the kitchen would, decades later, inspire me to seek out other wise women, the guardians of tradition who’ve kept their family’s food alive through love and strength of character. One of my life’s missions became to record and save precious recipes that might otherwise have been lost.

I’ve documented cooking around the entire Italian ‘boot’, at festivities and markets, and now think of recipes as being akin to fairy tales that are passed down orally from generation to generation. Each one encapsulates a unique coming together of personality, place and time. These days, I invite friends to share their recipes with me (and I share mine with them) to keep the traditions blooming. One such friend is Gennaro Contaldo, who’s been championing Italian food for years and whose vast experience as a chef I’ve found invaluable. I love cooking with him.

Another thing nonna La taught me is that the magic of Italian cooking is not about technique but about care, devotion and patience. Of course, even when it comes to long established dishes, there’s no such thing as a definitive recipe. Italy has 20 regions and 110 provinces, and each little patch of land resonates with a different style of cooking, with numerous versions of a dish that’s ostensibly the same, yet quite different.