Marchese Anna Tasca Lanza, author of two best-selling cookbooks,shares her love of Sicily and her family estate Regaleali by opening her home and teaching cooking classes in the spring and fall. Margie T Logarta caught up with the celebrity chef during at food promotion at the ITC Maurya Sheraton Hotel & Towers in Delhi.
What was the first dish you ever made?
A kind of eclair, I learned to make it in school in Switzerland.When I returned home,my father asked me,so what did you learn there,and I made some.
Did the family like it?
They must have because they finished them!
Your life as a chef, living in Sicily, sounds so interesting.
It is. I enjoy eating and I enjoy entertaining.We get a lot of visitors on our farm because my husband (Venceslao Lanza di Mazzarino) is a historian, and everyone wants to know about Sicily.
Where is your cooking school?
It’s on our farm Regaleali – Tasca d’Almerita Winery.Regaleali is an Arabic term for “the reign of Ali”.Sicily was once ruled by the Moslems.
(Editor’s note:Under the Kalbid rule,827-902 AD,Sicily was known as the Emirate of Sicily.)
Here, we are self-sufficient.We produce our own vegetables, fruits,wheat,wine, olives, grapes, cheese and meat.
Germany is the biggest buyer of our wines.
Alitalia also buys from us.
You didn’t have to become a cook but you did.
I learned a lot from my husband’s family in the eight years that I lived with them, but I never knew where the kitchen was. I never spoke to the chefmyself.The orders came either from my father-in-law or from my eldest brother-in-law. Then,I was an aristocratic lady and living like one.But things changed and I became a cook and am proud of being one. I enjoy my job enormously!
What are you most proud of as a culinary professional?
I want to promote regional recipes, I go out to the villages quite a lot and eat at those little trattorias.When they know I’m coming, the local women prepare something for me, perhaps, something that their grandfather used to make.But they don’t give me the recipe though.
So how do you translate that into a dish that others can try.
There are ways. I go back and consult the employees of our farm.One of them is bound to be familiar with that dish.
What is your favourite comfort food?
Whenever I return from trip, I must have pastina – little pasta swimming in chicken broth. My mother used to make this.
And your favourite airline?
Alitalia, of course.That’s because I have the miles.
