The Slow Food USA Blog

I Am What I Ate - Carlo Petrini

Posted on Tue, January 08, 2008 by Jerusha Klemperer
2 Comments | Categories: Farms and Farming, Uncategorized,

Slow Food USA members should have just received the issue 4 of The Snail for 2007. The theme of the issue is American Food Traditions; we asked some people to share with our readers their personal food heritage in a feature called "I Am What I Ate: Food from my childhood." Below, Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini shares his own (non-American, of course!) childhood food tradition.

by Carlo Petrini

My family's origins lie somewhere between the working class and the middle class. Our food culture was first and foremost a product of subsistence, and my grandmother was its guardian. I remember afterschool snacks of soma d'aj, a slice of bread toasted on the stove, rubbed with a clove of garlic and sprinkled with a little salt and oil sprinkled on top. Few would probably dream of preparing such a thing for their children these days, but for me, it was a sort of "education in garlic," and I certainly don't regret it. Two other dishes that were important to my childhood are meat ravioli, made to last the week and totally sublime in the delicateness of the pasta sheets, and rolatine, strips of meat rolled up around a filling of egg, vegetables, cheese, and breadcrumbs, served with Piedmontese salsa verde. This last dish is hardly to be found any more, but when I'm able to find it, it never ceases to bring back a rush of memories.

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Feel free to use the comments section to share your food heritage.

Member Comments

From PLozar on Fri, January 11, 2008

In ethnic origin I’m 1/2 Portuguese, 1/4 Irish, 1/8 English, and 1/8 Slovene/German … but as for the foods that most influenced my childhood, I’m 9/10 Italian. My mother made a terrific Azorean soup with beans and turnip greens, and she taught me how to can fruits and make jam, but her day-to-day cooking was bland. My elder aunt-by-marriage was Sicilian; she made her own marinara sauce, she pickled her own artichoke hearts, and at Christmas she made wonderful cookies (my favorites, which taste like a Fig Newton that died and went to heaven, are “cuccidatti,” although I didn’t know their official name until a couple of years ago). And, in the San Francisco Bay Area, we ate crusty bread (OK, sourdough isn’t really Italian, but most of the bakeries were), dry salami, and pasta of all shapes and sizes. From all this, I absorbed what to me are the two cardinal rules of Italian cooking: (1) Use good ingredients, and (2) treat them with respect.

From Snail Editor on Tue, January 15, 2008

Marcia Hamann of One Criollo Tours writes:
There wasn’t any scarcity of food, thank goodness, in my family. Both my parents were from farming Mid-western stock and they always set a good table. Food was fellowship, fun, and important. My Dad got off a submarine where he cooked during the war (I’ve tried to picture what that was like—1000’s of feet underwater)to see me for the first time at 6 months of age. He took a brief refresher restauranteur course and bought a small “family"restaurant and off we were into a world of making money by cooking good food for others and ourselves. “Family” restaurant needs to be defined (they almost don’t exist anymore). Our food was all from scratch and by hand everyday 6 days a week and it was comfort food for everyone—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, steaks, salads, sandwichs, pies, crepes etc.) ” Family” for us also meant we all worked in the restaurant. My jobs were dishwashing, salad making, and crepes. And the crepe making led me to France as a college foreign exchange student and then to my eventual own business –Springhill Bakery -a whole sale dessert bakery. My parents helped send me to college—“Don’t get into the restaurant business,” they told me. I tried teaching, writing, and many other things but eventually I wound up in exactly the right place—owning my own food business. I made them proud—I had all the work I could keep up with making desserts from scratch and with lots of fine chocolate. And, chocolate led me to my current occupation which is organizing and leading international culinary and cultural tours to Belize, Paris, Mexico, and Madagascar. The good food business led me to keep a year round vegetable garden and a flock of laying chickens. As I said, we set a good table, food is very important to me! I love to cook. I am what I cook.
MY DAD’S CREPES
4 eggs, beaten

1 glass of milk (8 0z)

½ cup flour

1 cup sugar (I use much less, especially for savory crepes)

Pinch of salt

2T vanilla

½ cup melted unsalted butter
Whisk well together and let set for several hours before making in seasoned pan