The Discovery of Food

My mother was easily the worst cook in our neighbourhood. Back in the early sixties, she was a liberated career woman – the only mother I knew who worked outside the home – and she expressed herself through her cooking. That is to say, her approach to preparing meals clearly expressed her fury and frustration with all aspects of domestic life. She would crash pots around, carelessly slap meat on the grill and leave it to smoke and curl, and boil vegetables until they lost their colour and structure and it was impossible to identify potato, cabbage or pumpkin. Sweets was icecream or fruit. Get it yourself.

Your own family is ‘normal’ until you’re old enough to have a few broader life experiences, so I grew up not caring much about food. It was fuel. I had a range of preferences just slightly narrower than my mother’s narrow repertoire. Then I spent a day at the house of my Italian friend, Vicki de Luca. What a revelation: it changed everything! First there was the garden. Her grandfather (whom she called “Nonno Giuseppe” and who hugged and fussed over her in a way I could never imagine my dour Scots grandfather doing) had an entire backyard devoted to fruit and vegetables. The only thing I had to compare it to was the illustration of the Garden of Eden in my Children’s Illustrated Bible. Lush green and purple grapes hung from the vines overhead; tomatoes and eggplants (what were they?) burst from great green bushes taller than me. Lemons, oranges, olives. Nonno Giuseppe pulled a couple of carrots from the rich earth, dusted them off and offered them to us. I followed Vicki’s lead and bit into the most intense, carroty carrot I had ever tasted.

Together we collected tomatoes, lettuces, onions, more carrots and a lot of unfamiliar leaves and herbs to take inside. On the way back to the house we passed the outside laundry where something involving steam, feathers and women talking loudly in Italian was taking place. Vicki gently steered me away – “You don’t want to see in there,” she said.

Inside the house another team of women was engaged in rolling dough, chopping vegetables, frying something delicious that made my mouth water (onion and garlic), endlessly checking the huge wood stove, chattering and laughing. Vicki and I were given jobs to do, and I found myself enveloped in a wonderful ritual where food was grown and prepared with love, companionship and the skills of a long tradition.

Finally it was time to eat. I was pretty much full after soup with a couple of chunks of warm, crusty bread from the oven, but there was much more to come: pasta with steaming fresh tomato sauce; roast chickens with Nonno’s vegetables, a huge layered chocolate cake, cheeses, grapes and figs. We kids were given sweet wine with water to drink. I had never tasted alcohol before, but Vicki’s Uncle Cesare insisted we all had to try his home vintage. I felt my face glowing. Some of the foods were just too alien and intense for my WASP palate, but most of the dishes were glorious, and the family were clearly delighted that I thought so. The meal just went on and on, the three generations of Vicki’s family relaxed and talked in their musical language, occasionally inviting me to eat some more, and telling Vicki her friend was “bellisima”, which, as a scrawny freckle-faced kid I certainly was not.

As Vicki walked me to the front gate and I thanked her for a great day, she grasped my arm and said anxiously, “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Somehow I knew exactly what she meant. There was still a lot of prejudice about “New Australians” and their foreign ways. I shook my head, smiled and waved goodbye.

Mum greeted me at the door and kissed me on the forehead. “Pooh, you smell of garlic!” she said, laughing. “Ready for dinner?”

“No thanks mum,” I said with complete honesty. “I’m not hungry.”