For Fabrizia Lanza, author of the new cookbook Coming Home to Sicily, preparing meals is not just about recipes but also about gestures and a way of life.
“It’s the way you put yourself in front of the table, how you add the water,” said Lanza, who returned to Case Vecchie, her family’s cooking school in Sicily, after years as an art historian in northern Italy.
“It’s living according to a very natural rhythm.”
Her cookbook contains 100 family recipes from the school, which is situated on one of the island’s oldest estates. Guests, amateurs and top chefs alike are encouraged to harvest the vegetables and observe the cheese-making even as they learn to cook the Sicilian way.
Lanza, who joined the business in 2006, spoke to Reuters about the pleasures of starting over, living off the land, and being blessed with “a good fork”.
Q: Why did you write this book?
A: I wanted to introduce myself to this world. My first career was as a museum curator and art historian, so I’m quite new to all of this. It’s my way of seeing, of cooking, and my way of getting into coming back to Sicily.
Q: Why did you return to Sicily?
A: I was in the art business for many years and I was a bit fed up with living in the north (of Italy). I really wanted to eat a good salad and a good tomato and I was bored with the grey sky. There are points in your life when you feel you can start again.
Q: How did you learn to cook?
A: I think in Italy all of us have some basics. We’ve all spent time, in the kitchen. Italians talk continuously about food. I never really learned from my mother, nor did she learn from her mother. We were just around food all day long. It’s another way of learning. It’s not instructions and rules, but it’s from your body.
Q: What do the people who visit your school find?
A: I offer mainly an experience. We make everything from scratch, including the bread. I get my flour from the local mill. I make my yogurt every morning. Everything is done there and it’s done as it’s always been done. We grow everything. The lamb is from there, the cheese is from there. It’s living off the land and also having a cultural understanding of why wheat is grown here instead of there and why is this vinegar made this way?
Q: How does Sicilian cuisine differ from the rest of Italy?
A: Sicily has different ingredients because we have different vegetables. Sicily is really diverse, with an amazing variety of landscapes, terroir and soil. Few foreigners realise that. We have this small island, so you think well that’s it, but when you travel to Sicily you realise how different the food and cultures are.