If I could define our work, our passion, our philosophy I would repeat the words of any Italian…… “Home – where our souls and heart meet, our days pass by around the kitchen table”. If you inquire further and insist in asking where do you eat well - At home they will confirm with a smile! Oh la vera Cucina, la cucina di casa, la Cucina della mamma.
Our school is the reflection of this home…..this home who will be always in my memories miles away. It is the wonderful smell of the tortellini in brodo that I once had in Bologna on a winter night with my friends Margherita and Valeria Simili, two special people that taught me so much and gave me the Bolognese flavour in my mouth.
It is the word of wisdom of Italian generations that I had the chance to see them fighting for survival outside Italy – it is the look of pleasure of a good friend of mine, Renzo Franceschini when he is confronted with his favourite dish; cappellacci di zucca con il vero ragu Bolognese! Oh his smile! It is the way that you know you gain more because you gave more! And our students are the ones that make this home bigger and bigger, our students are the reason for the light in our door.
The unforgettable Marcella Hazan defined in her book what she could understand of Italian cooking: “However much we roam, we will not be able to say we have tracked down the origin of Italy’s greatest cooking. It is not in the north, or the centre, or the south, or the islands. It is not in Bologna or Florence, in Venice or Genoa, in Rome or Naples or Palermo. It is in all those places, because it is everywhere. Nor is it the created, that is to say “creative” cooking of restaurant chefs. It is the cooking that spans remembered history, that has evolved during the whole course of transmitted skills and intuitions in homes throughout the Italian peninsula, and the islands, in its hamlets, on its farms, in its great cities.”
“Food, whether simple or elaborate, is cooking in style of the family. There is no such thing as Italian Haute Cuisine, because there are no high or low roads in Italian cooking. All roads lead to the home, to la Cucina di casa – the only one that deserves to be called Italian cooking.”
