General
What’s More Italian Than Making Pasta With Grandma?
In a small town near Rome, real nonnas teach the dying art of making farfalle, ravioli and other forms with a rolling pin, some flour and eggs.
Growing up in rural Italy in the 1990s, Chiara Leone remembers spending Sundays at her grandmother’s. Big sheets of handmade pasta dried on cotton sheets in the bedroom. The aroma of ragu filled the air. Her grandmother hugged her in an apron, a flour-covered rolling pin in hand.
“Handmade pasta is the symbol of a Sunday lunch with the family,” Ms. Leone said. “Now people go to restaurants.”
Ms. Leone and her childhood friend Chiara Nicolanti, both 37, and nine grandmothers in the small town of Palombara Sabina are trying to change that. Their company, NonnaLive, has the grandmothers teaching guests the dying art of making pasta by hand up to five times a day, seven days a week.
“I have three grandkids,” said Angela De Paolis, 68, one of the grandmothers, who goes by the nickname Lalla. “One thing I love is instead of putting my grandkids in front of the TV or video game, I make them make pasta with me. I start crying when I see my grandchildren make pasta, and I remember when my grandmother taught me how to make pasta.”
The company began seven years ago after Ms. Nicolanti became pregnant. She spent more time with her grandmother Nerina, who often made pasta in front of her. One day Ms. Nicolanti took a picture and put it on Facebook with the cheeky caption, “Hey, who wants to cook with Grandma today?”
