126 bbcgoodfood.com APRIL 2020
I was born on
the kitchen table,
so the kitchen has
always been my
home
GennaroG
ennaro Contaldo – the man who
taught Jamie how to cook Italian food- came to my house where I made him
his rigatoni cake. Both the dish, and the chat,
were spectacular.
He arrives at my house, shouting ‘I am here!’
as he climbs the stairs, and before even walking
through the door, thrusts four huge, intricately
carved walking sticks into my arms. Making
them is his hobby and each takes two weeks
to carve with a whittling knife. ‘I’ll use them
for mushroom foraging,’ I say, not entirely
truthfully, and he launches into a detailed
lesson on how to spot the poisonous ones – for
45 MINUTES – and then, takes o his jacket.
EI sense that you’re quite excitable – what is
it about Italian food that impassions you?
GIn Italy, people express themselves through
food. They don’t do the weighing things or the
fancy sauces – what you see is what you eat
- and it isn’t just the beautiful ingredients;
our food is all about history, and culture,
and our tradition of passing on perfect recipes
to new generations and new countries.
When food is perfect, it can make magic.
EHow do you mean?
GPaul McCartney once came to my Charlotte Street
restaurant. I cooked him a poached globe artichoke, all
lovely flavours inside with olive oil and tomatoes and
basil. I told him The Beatles were one of the reasons
I came to England and ‘Yesterday’ was one of my
favourite of songs. He ate my food, and then sang
me the song, without even a guitar. It was beautiful.EWhen did you know food was going to be your life?
GMy mum said I was born on the kitchen table – the
bed wasn’t big enough and there was no hospital in
our village, so the kitchen has always been my home.EAnd when did you start working in restaurants?
GI was still a child. In Umbria, when a daughter was
getting married, she needed a box of linen – a dowry.
My family made these, and my father had customers
to see all over the mountain. I used to go with him, but
sometimes he left me with his friend in the next village
who had a restaurant. The chef had a son who taught
me to cook. He must have been 13 and I was 10 – and
when my father picked me up on his way home, I didn’t
want to go because I loved it so much, what I was doing.EWhat about school?
GSchool never played a big part for me. I come from
a small village on the Amalfi coast: the mountain was
my playground and the sea was my swimming pool.
I preferred fishing on top of the rocks, or any excuse
to go to the restaurant. So I left school at 14 to work in
the kitchens. There was no law or regulation, but this
was almost 60 years ago.EI love the way that we’ve seen
your life in food play out on our
television screens over the years,
like your TV love a air with
Antonio Carluccio on the
BBC’sTwo Greedy Italians.
GAntonio was such an important
part of my life. We worked together
for 35 years and we travelled
together; we had a stronger bond
than brothers. We were like boys
in a sweetshop when we filmed in
Italy. I miss him so much since he
died; I still talk to him often –
he doesn’t say much. But we had
such adventures. When Antonio
and I worked in Covent Garden,
Pavarotti used to come in straight
from the theatre, still dressed as
Othello – he wouldn’t even take
his make-up o first. He loved
Antonio’s filled pasta but he
particularly loved my fried pastry- it was thin, like paper, with a
little bit of lemon zest in it. I went
to see him in his dressing room
before a concert once, and he said,
‘You gave me your food, now come,
sit here. Listen.’ He sat me at his
dressing table and sang me an aria.
EWhat a reward. What about Jamie? We’ve watched
you nurture him in the kitchen since he was in his 20s.