Channelling her nonna
Emily Richards preserves her Italian grandmother’s heritage with a book of recipe favourites
As the only grandchild for the first seven years of her life, cookbook author Emily Richards spent a lot of time in the kitchen with her nonna.
Until she went to school, Emily was dropped off daily at her maternal grandmother’s home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Because nonna’s career was cooking for her immediate and extended family, little Emily had no choice but to watch and help and learn.
“My grandmother would dump a 20-pound bag of flour on the dining room table and just throw the water and the yeast in there, no measuring, nothing,” Richards says.
“She would bake bread for everybody, for my aunts, for neighbours. … I was in awe of her.”
Her nonna was an immigrant whose best connection to her home in Calabria, Italy, was through its food. Her reputation was built on her pillowy potato gnocchi, her ricottastuffed cannoli, her citrusy spiced olives.
Richards later turned those early food experiences into a career as a professional home economist, cooking instructor and recipe developer at Canadian Living. But as the years went by, and she had three children of her own, Richards (née Fernandes) fretted that the treasured dishes of her youth would be lost should her grandmother die (she is now 88).
So she spent much of the last 15 years cooking beside her grandmother to document all the ingredients, measurements and techniques of nonna’s best recipes.
“All my adult life, I wanted to cook like her because I loved her food,” says Richards, 42.
The result is Per La Famiglia (For the Family), a collection of 150 beloved family dishes, with a focus on the ones that were popular for celebrations such as Easter, Christmas and christenings.
Not all the recipes come from her nonna. One aunt in particular, who reluctantly donated her famous tiramisu that substituted lemon cream for mascarpone, was worried Richards would end up doing a better job of the dessert and the aunt’s expertise would no longer be in such demand. Richards assured her that would never happen.
While many traditional southern Italian recipes call for hours of chopping, peeling and simmering, Richards has made concessions to the modern reality. Recipes have also been reduced in size and Richards has been careful to include recipes that freeze well for the busy modern cook. Here’s a favourite recipe.