Don’t miss this wonderful interview and chat with Vicky Bennison from Pasta Grannies. Her videos of octogenarian (and older) Italian women making homemade pasta are captivating and heartwarming. Plus they dig deep into the hundreds upon hundreds of different pasta shapes throughout Italy.
Vicky’s Pasta Grannies brand started off six years ago and she realized right off the bat that video was the perfect platform to capture these delightful women at work making homemade pasta. Video allowed Vicky to bridge the language gap and share what is fundamentally the visual magic of homemade pasta making: the pasta itself coupled with delightful women who have most of them been making pasta by hand for half a century.
Here are just a few of them (photos from Pasta Grannies):
Ida is full of mirth as she makes her homemade pasta:
Italian kitchens are usually quite small but still these joyful women manage to work their pasta magic all the same. Take note of the giant, weathered and dented pasta pot in the background:
Pasta grandmas love to share their pasta-making knowledge with their grandchildren and great grandchildren:
Because kitchens are so small most Italian women have a rough-and-tumble weathered pasta board that they keep tucked away and then pull out when it’s time to make pasta. The boards are all unique, aged and beautiful in their simplicity:
My chat with Vicky delved into her enormous success and how it came about. But it went much further: we chatted about some of Italy’s amazing pastas like corzetti which are made using a corzetti stamp.
Pasta Fagioli, or Pasta & Bean Soup, is prevalent throughout Italy but it’s a classic in Lazio, the region where Rome is located. My own pasta granny – my 90 year old mother-in-law Lidia – taught me this luscious dish many years ago.
Vicky and I also discussed what it is about Italian culture that leads to such notable longevity in the population. Diet, frugality, physical activity and social involvement are some of the contributing factors.
So where will Vicky take the Pasta Grannies brand from here? She still has regions and pasta types yet to film in Italy, like the Calabria region.
The natural outgrowth of Vicky’s pasta granny videos was a book featuring the grannies and their recipes. If you don’t yet have the book pick up a copy right here.
The book will come out in Italian – “Pasta Le Ricette della Tradizione” – on October 7th, 2020 (publisher: Il Castello Editore) and it’s already a roaring success in many countries around the globe. If you’d like to order your English version copy in Italy you can order it online here.
Vicky’s expansion could include tv, or pasta grannies in other countries, or….?
Tune in to the podcast to find out all about Vicky, Pasta Grannies and where it’s all heading in the future.
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You might also enjoy this episode about Food Memories.
And of course if you’d like to try your hand at homemade pasta making here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it.
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