FAMILY TIES
BY SHARING THE FOOD OF HER HOMELAND, AN ITALIAN MAMMA ENSURED HER OWN LEGACY WOULD LIVE ON.
A daughter shares her beloved late mamma’s ricotta torta recipe, which reminds her of her family’s proud Italian heritage.
SHE MAY HAVE been living in Australia, but Immacolata Circelli never went anywhere without Italian money in her wallet. “It was so we would never forget where we came from,” says her youngest daughter, Elena Burden.
Not that forgetting was ever likely — every mealtime the family was transported back to the Italian village they had left in 1969 through the simple, traditional dishes Immacolata, who was called Mary by her family, brought to the table. “We had some kind of pasta every single day,” Elena, 59, explains. “It might have only been a small portion but it was always there.”
Family and cooking were everything to Mary Fantetta who was born in 1921 in the village of San Bartolomeo in the Campania region of Italy. It was here she met Pasquale Circelli, an artisan bricklayer, and was married at just 16 years of age. After having three children they moved to Velletri, near Rome, and added three more to their brood. Eventually, convinced by his two oldest children who had already moved to Australia, Pasquale obtained a work sponsorship and the entire family made the trip to their new home.
Elena says the family spared no time in embracing Australia. “We arrived on the Labour Day weekend and I went to school on the Tuesday,” she laughs. “Mum got a job cleaning at the school not long after, even though she didn’t speak a word of English. Looking back it was a brave thing to do. They weren’t young and they had to take out a loan to buy the tickets for us to travel out here.”
Sundays were all about family when Mary’s children
— and eventually grandchildren — gathered to enjoy her cooking. “She would make pasta from scratch
and homemade bread,” explains Elena. “They would have ‘tomato day’ — even though I was always embarrassed about what the neighbours would think!”
Mary’s ricotta cake (recipe below) was a prime example of her simple, frugal food and she often made her own fresh curds from milk that was excess or just beginning to turn. “Mum never wrote down her recipes so I have adapted this one over time to incorporate the berries or other fruits and I love the demerara sugar on top as I adore the crunchy sweet crust,” explains Elena, who has worked with her sisters to recreate many other family favourites.
After a short illness, Mary passed away in 1989 and Pasquale followed five years later. “Mum has been gone a long time now but she is always present, especially through her cooking.”
“Mum never wrote down her recipes so I have adapted this one over time to incoporate the berries... ”