Food and Italians in Australia

How far will you go for a meal? Italians will drive most of the length of their peninsula to get the perfect pasta; think nothing of getting into a fast car to hurtle from Perugia to Venice for gelati in Piazza San Marco.

Life is there to be enjoyed, clothes to be perfectly cut and adorn the body beautiful. The passegiata to be taken every day so that they can see and be seen.

And food, well it's always said that it's only as good as mother makes but then there are the exceptions which drive those excursions around the country at the right time for that particular dish.

We need the Italians. They remind us what it means to be alive, to be living for the moment, to eat what is in season, in perfect condition and produced by those who know and care passionately about that particular speciality.

It's important that Italians remind us constantly of tradition. Yet at the same time they can be amazingly creative and flexible and remain sticklers for preserving the perfect creation, the dish as it should be and rejoice in the repetition of that. When you've got it right don't break the mould.

Another paradox is that the best meals in Italy are usually in the simplest places. Some of the most delicious of food I've ever eaten in the humblest of surroundings. Real Italian food (of course there are always exceptions to any such generalisation) does not translate in formal restaurants. The world's great restaurants come out of the French tradition. Why is it so? Given the Italian genius in so many fields, why is the best food not at the grand tables?

Paradox is part of the charm of Italy. it's what keeps us going back, it's what keeps families together. There is no order in that world, only the knowledge and security of the family. There are no rules which if you hold to and conform to will guarantee you safe passage into 'quality'. The frustration of a society without rules but with the barriers of secret societies and of closed families has taunted foreigners to its shores for as long as history.

Yet Italy draws more tourists and more writers and artists to its shores than any other 'country'. It continues to fascinate and excite perhaps because of the spontaniety - the immediacy of the moment and the importance of appearance.

And in the production of cookery books? It's mind boggling the number of and demand for books on Italian food, particularly as such a thing really does not exist.

There is no such thing as 'Italian' food.

It's the cooking of families, of villages, of town, cities, regions. Each have their own ways of doing things and they fiercely guard and protect their traditional ways. For some its familial pride, some because nothing is written down just passed on from mother to daughter.

Italian society does not abide by rules . Not a matter of what you know but who you know.

Here we try and look into the family secrets of some Italians living here - the Italian restaurant families of Melbourne (my mother's parents), the rural community of Myrtleford (my Irish grandparents and my aunt's) and the restaurant 'aristocracy' of Milano, Italy, where my grandparents came from.

In all these groups, meals are an essential part of daily life. Not just for survival but because food has such a high value. Everyone knows seasonality - knows when things are at their best; they know who has the best recipes. Food is not just a backdrop for business or to fill the stomach. It has a high value in everyone's lives and is thought about constantly, perhaps not more than sex, but ...

Other communities share these values but are not so inclusive of 'foreigners' as are their Italians. Certainly not the families in hospitality which this book concentrates on.

If we want to learn about Italians, how they love and live life so fully, best starting point is to learn how they eat, because eating is living. However don't want to take a nostalgic look at how food and life used to be enjoyed in Italy, but to see how it is prepared and eaten by Italian communities outside of their country. We can't re-produce Italian conditions so let's instead look at what can be done in Australia today

This book doesn't define or codify Italian food. It takes you to the table of some families and through their stories and by sharing in some of their secrets, perhaps confuses you further? It's all a bit like the plots of the great operas, not profound, often nonsensical, but what pleasure is had throughout.

And the association of music and art with food is inseparable in Italy and with the families whose stories are told here. Whilst Italians know and love seasonality and seek out those who understand this and can produce a particular dish which is always the same and keep on enjoying that sameness; they are also infinitely flexible. If the moment is right to eat and the particular ingredients are not there, an Italian chef, like Lou Molina, just makes it up as he goes along. "I just look at the cupboard and in the fridge, pick a few herbs, and make dinner." All part of the pleasure of life, being at table with friends and using what is to hand, as long as that includes a bottle of wine.

It is the story of these people.

The Italian Restaurant families

The way we eat in Australia this century has a lot to do with the Italian restaurant families, particularly the ones who opened their doors prior to the 2nd World War. There are some terrific Italian cooks who arrived later but those early 20th Century arrivals really made their mark in showing Australians about the pleasures of life at and beyond the table - through food, wine, conversation, art and music.

Most of them came from the north of Italy and many were political refugees. My grandparents, the Viganos, were forced to leave their home and properties in Milano after a murder attempt was made on Mario Vigano’s life by Fascist thugs. He was a vocal opponent of Mussolini.

Like many of those families described here, the Viganos brought with them an understanding and love not just of food and wine but of a way of living which was completely different to that of the mainly Anglo Celtic population amongst whom they were to make their lives .

By the 1930s their presence in Melbourne at the top end of the city in and around Bourke, Lonsdale and Exhibition Streets, had become very strong. The restaurants these families started - Cafe d'Italia (later The Latin), The Society, Florentino's, Molinas and, my family’s Marios, attracted first the bohemians - the artists and thespians, and the politicians. Students who were later to become powerful members of society had their first spaghetti at one of those establishments.

By the 50s it was the next generation, the sons of the founders, that were running these places. Some of them went to the same schools, they worked and played together and as they matured, talked business together. Later, they started to meet for regular lunches and became known as the spaghetti mafia. They would help each other in making sense of Anglo Saxon society and particularly its strange liquor laws. They each found a way of providing wine with food despite the restrictions of 6 o clock closing and of dining rooms only being licensed until 8pm. My mother, Maria O’Donnell (nee Vigano) recalls applying regularly for special occasion permits - which would allow liquor to be served till 10pm and then only to the special party. My grandfather, Mario, who had studied law in Italy, would go along to the licensing court and regularly do battle for change. And, like his fellow Italian caf proprietors he would find other means of circumventing the law. They won eventually and subsequent changes to the state laws have resulted in Victoria having the most flexible and civilised licencing in the country.

And some thirty years later, when operating our restaurant, Miettas in Alfred Place in the city (a short distance from where Marios once was) the changes resulting from the 1986 Nieuenhuysen Report made possible the operation of The Lounge and Bar business there as well as the restaurant.

However, the reasons for starting a restaurant in North Fitzroy in 1974 and now writing this book, a quarter of a century later, are about a fascination with food and entertaining which came from my grandparents. They gave me a glimpse of the sort of pleasure which can be given to people by true hospitality - that is, when you give of yourself, of what you like, you enjoy and what you like to surround yourself with. If that is, - as it was in my grandparents’s case - art and music as well as fine food and wine; then youve got it made.

It is to them that I owe my career as a restaurateur which, unlike theirs, only lasted 22 years. They operated Marios for more than 30 years. Whilst I and my partner Tony Knox closed Miettas in the city at the beginning of 1996, my sister, Patricia O'Donnell, continues to run Miettas Queenscliff Hotel and more recently, the North Fitzroy Star.

Since closing the restaurant in the city, I’ve been exploring the maze of Italian family stories and connections in researching my own familys history and that of their peers - the Codognottos, Massonis, Molinas, Triacas and Virgonas.

Some great characters, some fascinating history about Melbourne, Australia, about liquor laws, and some wonderful old photos. And, with some effort and persuasion, some terrific and useful recipes and secrets that make Italian cooking in Australia possible for us all.

But the bulk of the recipes in this book come from Silvana Palmira, originally from Molise in the Abruzzo region of Italy. She had always loved cooking, her grandmother and uncle were professional cooks in Italy but her parents insisted she learn another trade. However after coming to Melbourne in 1956 and marrying Pietro Battaglia she started a catering business, had several very successful restaurants of her own, returned often to Italy and is now retired. She has helped me to test most of the recipes in this book and has passed on many of her own cooking 'secrets' for its readers. I am enormously grateful to her for her time and her great cooking skills.

Another successful woman chef of Italian origin, Patrizia Simone, has also given me some of her recipes. She runs Cafe Bacco and Simones at Bright in the North East of Victoria.

Patrizia came to Melbourne from Perugia in the Umbria region of Italy where her mother ran a catering business. She studied cooking there but explored another career until coming to Australia. She worked in kitchens in Melbourne and then after settling in the Ovens Valley area and doing a refresher course at trade school in Albury she and her husband George built the Ovens Valley Motor Inn and Simones restaurant.

When we talk to Silvana and Patrizia, despite differences in age, family background and in the region of Italy they came from, the theme that keeps recurring in their conversation is - the way it used to be done in Italy. This is not just about nostalgia but about being able to accept that there are perfect combinations, things which just work brilliantly together. Theres no need to add more or fiddle. What also emerges in talking to them and to other Italian cooks in Australia is how much they rejoice in the repetition of cooking tasks which they know and understand. There is a ritual in each of their making of the pasta which has a spirituality about it. Mind you, they have each adapted in various ways - using machinery to some extent where their mothers in Italy would have worked only by hand.

But their cooking is not just about memories it’s also about what is available in Australia and the little tricks and clever solutions they find to using different ingredients. Whilst respecting the old ways, theyve both come up with their own creations and can be infintely flexible in their ways.

If the moment is right to eat and the particular ingredients are not there, an Italian chef, like Lou Molina, is sempre pronto - always ready, or, just makes it up as he goes along. "I just look at the cupboard and in the fridge, pick a few herbs, and make dinner." All part of the pleasure of life, being at table with friends and using what is to hand, as long as that includes a bottle of wine.