It’s the Pasta! It’s the People! It’s Italy!

Pre-order Milk Street Backroads Italy: Finding Italy’s Forgotten Recipes HERE.It’s a look I’ve come to appreciate, even if it shames me a bit.

It’s a look each of the five Vittozzi sisters is a master of—undoubtedly learned from their mother and grandmother, usually cooking nearby. A look slightly scolding, slightly puzzled by the silliness of my questions. A look, nonetheless, followed by a patient explanation of everything I’ve misunderstood.

I’ve cooked with the Vittozzi sisters—Rosa, Anna, Veronica, Enza and Elena—repeatedly over the years at La Tavernetta Vittozzi, their cozy back-alley restaurant in Naples, Italy. It’s the sort of Central Casting eatery where most diners visit daily, where the side dishes are displayed in the window and the menu is handwritten and photocopied fresh.

Each time, I bring new-to-me mysteries from my mission to understand real Italian cooking. How do you make the perfect meatball? How do you get your onions so beautifully caramelized for pasta Genovese? What’s the real Italian wedding soup and why is it so much better than Italian-American versions? And oh-my-god! your grandmother’s lasagna! Teach me!

Hence, the look.

Milk Street has been around for some 10 years now. And in that time, I’ve visited roughly 30 countries in our search for better, brighter, more delicious ways to get dinner on the table. But Italy is the country I keep going back to. No surprise, really. It’s the food, of course. Also the vibe. And the wine (duh!).

But mostly, it’s the people. I’ve been lucky enough to be welcomed into people’s kitchens around the world. But somehow when I am in Italy, it always feels like I’m being welcomed home. Again, it’s the people.

People like the Vittozzi sisters. One of the first recipes they taught me was Neapolitan Meatballs with Ragù. Massive orbs of meat so tender and light, yet so rich and beefy. Enza sang opera for us while Rosa showed me the proper way to shape the meatballs. She was so fast and so nimble at it, they seemed to hover between her palms.

On another trip to Naples—this time on the other side of the city—I met Maria Notaro, an octogenarian who runs La Cantinetta with her son. It’s the sort of convenience store/enoteca/eatery where cat food and wine and potato chips and packages of pasta share shelves. It has changed little since Notaro took over more than 60 years ago. It also happens to serve some of the best food in Naples.

There are wine spigots at the cash register—men popping in to fill tiny glasses with the house white, then ambling on. Construction workers stop in for a quick lunch of exquisitely crisp-plump fried anchovies, crowding the shop’s 10 tables. It’s hidden on the city outskirts on a residential street on the wrong side of the tracks of Stazione di Napoli Centrale.

Notaro taught me an almost forgotten recipe (even in Naples) — zuppa forte. It’s an old-school dish made by slow-cooking meats with garlic, tomatoes and preserved chilies until reduced and concentrated. It’s the richest, most intense pasta sauce you will ever taste. While we sopped up the excess with doughy bread, Notaro told us stories of the “old days.”

As I said, it’s the people.

North of Rome in Pretoro—a medieval Italian village of about 800 people tucked into and up the hills of Abruzzo—I met Giovanni Iezzi. He used to be a furniture maker. Today, he crafts wooden chitarra, melodic pasta-making tools that resemble a wooden shoebox strung all around with piano wire. The wires cut sheets of fresh pasta into rough, squared off strands.

Why are those pasta strands special? They are the secret tothe original spaghetti and meatballs, a dish we’ve always been told REAL Italians don’t eat. Except they do. And it’s wonderful. He made me a chitarra on the spot, a 45-minute process that weaves together bits of beechwood, a few bolts, a handful of tiny brass nails and fiber-thin wire.

Did I mention, it’s the people?

I’m telling you all this because we’ve done something new. We’ve written an Italian cookbook unlike anything we’ve done before. It’s got recipes, of course. Tons of amazing recipes. Polenta!Pesto! Pasta! But just as important, it’s got people. Milk Street Backroads Italy: Finding Italy’s Forgotten Recipes isn’t just a cookbook. It’s a love story to the people of Italy.

For the first time, we’ve written a cookbook that weaves together not only everything that makes Italian food so delicious, but also the stories and photos of the people behind the food. It’s an invitation to travel across Italy from your kitchen, getting to know people like the Vittozzi sisters and Maria Notaro and Giovanni Iezzi.

The book comes out April 15, but is available for pre-order now. It is easily my favorite Milk Street cookbook. It does so much more than teach you to cook real—and really wonderful—Italian food. It’s an opportunity to meet the people who taught us, to see their smiles and laughs, and sometimes sadness. Italy, like everywhere, is changing. We worked hard to capture some of that magic before we lose it.

So tonight, no cocktail. But I will raise a glass of Italian wine in honor of the Vittozzi sisters and all the other cooks who have shared so much with us over the years.

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