Lidia Bastianich, the Italian-American Julia Child?

When Lidia Bastianich arrived as a child in the United States after two years living in a refugee camp, her mother served food that the family could afford: Wonder bread, bananas and milk. The first place she ate outside the family table was at the Automat; she loved opening up the little doors and finding American delicacies like jello: “It was great entertainment for us.”

None of this stopped Bastianich from growing up into a celebrated restaurateur; owner of an extensive food empire; and one of the most beloved chefs on television. Lidia Matticchio Bastianich had her “palate awakened” and her culinary “reference library” established, as she puts it, before she ever got to America.

She tells me the story while we sit in Felidia on East 58th Street, one of her six restaurants, and then a few days later she repeats it at a lecture in front of hundreds of dedicated fans at Liberty State Park, across from Ellis Island. In her hometown of Pula, Istria – a region that was first part of Italy, then Yugoslavia, now Croatia — “my whole growing up was around a courtyard,” she said. “In the garden my grandmother produced almost everything that we ate.” She remembers that her grandmother would make the rounds pulling out the potato plants. “It was my job to go after her and pick up the small potatoes. They were warm from the sun. I can still feel that warmth. That connection is what drives my cooking.”

It is her own warmth that drives her fans to watch her shows and buy her books. Next month Bastianich begins a 26-part PBS TV series entitled “Lidia Cooks From The Heart of Italy”: a companion cookbook subtitled “A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes” will be published by Knopf in October. It will be her sixth cookbook; four of her first five were also companion volumes to television series, and also bestsellers.

If an hour lecture focusing on the importance of eating your fruits and vegetables ( fresh, locally grown, organic) might strike somebody new to foodie culture as a bit, um, motherly, the hundreds of people in attendance were eating it up. This became especially clear in the question and answer session afterwards.

“I’m an aspiring chef,” said a boy who looked no older than 16, while his even younger brother sat in rapt attention nearby. “You know where I should go to school?”

Bastianich gave him a long answer, telling him he needs to go to college and study something serious, such as the life sciences, “something that enriches you as a person,” and then he should travel, “to see what you like” and “then you go on to culinary school,” (she didn’t name any specific ones) and afterward he must commit “time, passion and a lot of hard work.”

“One more question,” the boy added. “When are we going to see Grandma again?” — referring not to his own relative but to Bastianich’s mother.

Other audience questions, mostly from men: How do you make meat balls moist? (mix the meats, not just beef; if you’re not restricted from mixing meat and milk, “try soaking bread crumbs in milk”). What kind of cuisine do you like besides Italian? (Asian, especially Thai, and lately Egyptian…). What does al dente really mean? (It means “to the tooth…It means when you bite into it, you feel it. There is a point of resistance” — which is good because if it’s softer your stomach digests it too quickly…). Is there anything you really hate to eat? (cilantro). What would be your last meal? (figs, linguini al dente with clam sauce, a ripe peach)

I’ve always found this last one a weird question (which as fellow Faster Times food writer Scott Gold pointed out, is one Bastianich previously answered in an entire book devoted to the subject, The Last Supper.) If you were so sick you knew you were about to die, would you really want to eat ANYTHING? But I had already learned from my conversation with her that she was ready and willing to talk about just about anything connected to food.

On the meaning of food: “Food is at the base of what we are. It nurtures us. It’s a social connector. It’s a way of being creative.”

On cooking for the Pope: “He had a connection to food. His mother was a chef.” She cooked foods she knew from Germany and, she says, he said to her, “Just like my mother’s flavors.”

On watching food shows: “I watch everything there is about food. I watch them all because I need to know.” That doesn’t mean she likes them all. She likes American Test Kitchen. About the ones she does not like, but is too polite to name, “some of the food shows are ridiculing their audience.”

On Julie & Julia: “I thought Meryl Streep was phenomenal. I could have watched her for the whole two hours.”

On Julia Child: “We had the same editor. We traveled together. We did a show together that was nominated for an Emmy. She and James Beard sat in this very dining room, and told me their favorite recipes of mine were the risotto con funghi and the orecchiette con broccoli rabe”

On the tomato fungus: “It’s the same fungus that created the Irish potato famine is now affecting tomatoes. Tomatoes are going to be more expensive.”

On American versus Italian eating habits: “I don’t think anybody is as open as Americans to learning new things and exploring new things. It’s much more difficult to change the eating habits of Italians….But they don’t need to.”

Interview, lecture and book-signing were over, but there was a surprise: Her personal assistant Lauren handed me the galleys of her new cookbook.

I flipped through it, and — it had been a long day — I came up with an inspiration. I contacted Diane.
“I’m thinking of doing a Julie & Julia with Lidia Bastianich’s new cookbook,” I told her.
In yet another surprise, Diane approved. “You should try to have a dinner party with it,” she said.
I gulped.

Update:
Tomatoes — First Ingredient, First Recipe — what an heirloom tomato is, and why people engage in a rotten tomato riot every year in Bunol, Spain.

First Recipe, Part II: The Hunt For Peperoncino

First Recipe, Finally Cooked. Or: Why Many People Don’t Cook

Meatball. A Meditation

Photographs by Jonathan Mandell