Table for two
COVER STORY
Continued from E33 ageing Italian stereotypes straight from central casting, but scattered through every episode are some genuinely affecting ruminations on family, tucker, and love.
‘‘Really, we made this series because we’d both been away for 40 years, and we had great curiosity to see what Italy is about now. We discovered things are not so good. The children are obese because they’re so sedentary and often eating rubbish. Even in schools, they have snack vending machines! In our day, you had only the food your mother was cooking! Also, Italian supermarkets are also offering a lot of terrible ready-made things these days. These meals may make life easier, but they do not make it tastier!’’
The solution? Good traditional cooking, informed by Carluccio’s ‘‘Mof Mof’’ motto: Minimum of fuss, maximum of flavour. ‘‘The simplicity of Italian food is what makes it special. Every region has its own food that’s grown locally, and people cook almost exclusively with those ingredients. They don’t go to great lengths to cover the taste of good fish or good meat; you eat what you see and just do a few simple things to enhance that flavour. As a nation, we’re not so interested in fusion food – I call it ‘con-fusion’ – and we’re also suspicious of molecular gastronomy, with all the gases and foams and strange techniques. Italians prefer to make food without undue complication, and we’re more concerned with flavour than how something looks.’’
Born on Italy’s Amalfi coast in 1937, Carluccio is widely regarded as the godfather of Italian gastronomy in Britain. The former wine merchant started his first restaurant in London’s Covent Garden in 1981, and three decades later is still spreading the word that fresh, simple and seasonal is best.
‘‘Many restaurants are returning now to peasant dishes,
‘We should celebrate making love and eating, because without food you die, and without making love there’s no next generation, so again, life would end.’
because that old-fashioned food is packed with flavour. People are getting their priorities right again. One of my favourite Italian chefs once said that food and procreation are the most important things in life. We should celebrate making love and eating, because without food you die, and without making love there’s no next generation, so again, life would end.’’
He laughs a great rumbling laugh, but it wasn’t long ago that the notion of life ending early was pretty appealing to this seemingly jovial man.
In Carluccio’s new autobiography A Recipe For Life (Hardie Grant Books, RRP $49.99), a picture emerges of a far more melancholy soul than the gently smiling sage we see on our TV screens. Besides celebrating many personal triumphs, he writes of a lonely childhood, three failed marriages, and the recent closure of his flagship London eatery, admitting he’s been plagued all his life by doubt, anxiety and depression. There have been six suicide attempts, the most recent in 2008, when he stabbed himself in the chest with a pair of scissors.
‘‘I wrote that book to investigate who and what I am,’’ he says with a sigh. ‘‘The death of my little brother, and the death of a friend – these things were never digested. Also, I missed real love. I lived away from my family, mostly alone, and tried to achieve peace of mind with various women, and that didn’t happen, which further depressed me. Creating my Carluccio’s restaurant chain was a problem, too. Once my name was used as a brand, I lost my identity. These things all led to depression, and I tried to cover that up by always joking and pretending to be jolly. But then I finally went and got some treatment for my problems. Now the depression’s gone, but the jokes will stay. I am looking forward to the next 30 years, though I’m 75, so that’s optimistic, I know! But all the years I have left, I plan to live them well and be happy.’’
Monday, 1.30pm, 5.30pm and 9.30pm, Food TV.