THE MASTER OF PASTA
PRUDENCE WADE SPEAKS TO ITALIAN CHEF GENNARO CONTALDO ABOUT HIS FAVOURITE FOOD AND WHY HE HAS DEDICATED AN ENTIRE COOKBOOK TO IT
AS JAMIE OLIVER’S right-hand man, we’ve come to know Gennaro Contaldo rather intimately: Exuberant, passionate – and as Italian as pasta alla puttanesca.
Within minutes of meeting him, it becomes clear this isn’t an act Gennaro puts on for the camera. The 70-year-old chef is exactly how he is on screen: warm, full of energy, and able to talk about food for hours.
Gennaro has lived in England for 50 years, but his love of Italian cuisine is as strong as ever. His latest cooking book is dedicated entirely to the country’s national dish – pasta.
He has written or contributed to more than 10 books, so it was perhaps high time Gennaro produced one that’s all about his favourite food.
PASTA IS LOVE
GENNARO can’t help but wax lyrical about pasta. For him, it’s so much more than just food – it represents home, family and love.
“To me, the only way to remind me of childhood is my mother, my father and my sister making fresh pasta,” he says wistfully.
“It’s very romantic. Fresh pasta for me means warmness and family, like a wood fired oven when it’s cold.”
This gets him talking about Minori, the town on the Italian Amalfi Coast where he grew up.
“I remember there used to be pastificio (pasta factory) – there was only one in my home town, it was on the promenade by the sea,” Gennaro reminisces.
He can’t remember how he learned to make pasta, because it’s been around him his whole life. “I could almost have been a spaghetti!” he says, exploding with laughter.
With such fond memories of home-made pasta growing up, it felt natural that Gennaro would carry this love into his adult life – and he wants other people to share in this warmth.
At its core, Gennaro thinks pasta is a “symbol of love”, but it helps that “also it tastes good”, he adds with his signature chuckle.
PASTA IS ITALY
MUCH of the book explores the history of pasta, and recipes from various regions in Italy. “The Italians are very proud because everyone makes their own version of pasta, but at the end it’s all the same,” says Gennaro.
For him, it was particularly important to pay tribute to the different regions and histories of each dish. “History is culture,” Gennaro explains. “And you have to respect the traditions and the cultures of people.”
Gennaro has a huge national pride in pasta, which becomes abundantly clear when he starts reeling off long lists of all the different varieties there are.
“I discover a new way of making pasta almost every month,” he adds, without even a hint of boastfulness.
PASTA IS EASY
MUCH of the book is dedicated to dried pasta – something which Gennaro loves, as long as you make sure to buy a proper Italian product. He advises you make sure the packet says “durum wheat, semolina and water, because most of the pasta you buy from the supermarket is just semolina and water”.
What he really wants to do is encourage people to make their own. For some reason, whipping up fresh pasta has the reputation of being labour-intensive and tricky, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
More than once, Gennaro reels off the basic pasta recipe (which is literally just eggs and flour), proclaiming how “easy” it is – and not to mention cheap.
This doesn’t mean people don’t mess it up, but Gennaro is clear about the most common
Benjamin de Rothschild 2012
mistakes to watch out for.
“Overcooked pasta,” he says with a grimace. “Sometimes it’s so much overcooked that it’s like glue.”
There’s also a reason it should be cooked al dente, which in Italian means ‘to the tooth’. If it’s slightly under-cooked, Gennaro says: “You chew longer, and when you chew longer it tastes better and has more flavour. It also helps with your digestion.”
Gennaro’s final word on all things pasta? “Pasta doesn’t make you fat,” he says with a chuckle. “It’s the sauce you put on top.”