In November 2017, strangers Lisa and A lessandro both swiped right on a dating app, and quickly a mutual love of food surfaced. Lisa shared her grandmother’s Caribbean recipes and Alessandro recounted years spent cooking by his grandmother’s side in Campania, Italy.
Lisa, 29, says, “My Nanna Helen held the family together, and every Sunday we’d go to hers for Sunday lunch. It was sweet to learn Alessandro’s grandma Raffaella was the same. Cooking had brought our families together, and now it was doing the same for us.
“I grew up in Manchester and Nanna lived nearby, and after school, I’d go there and stand in the kitchen on a stool and help her mix things as she cooked. She played a big role in my upbringing, and was always trying to bring people together with food or good conversation. She was a perfectionist and very expressive in the kitchen.”
Helen was from Nevis, a small volcanic island in the Caribbean, and cooked traditional Nevisian food. Meanwhile, Alessandro, now 36, grew up in southern Italy with a big family, like Lisa. He watched his grandma cook and grandpa tend to fruits, vegetables and chickens in the garden, and picked up their skills almost by osmosis.
After meeting, Lisa and Ale spent weeks learning about each other’s families and childhoods, swapping recipes that plunged them into nostalgia and story telling. Lisa was surprised to see the crossovers between their family cuisines and eating cultures.