Читать книгу Mangia Tiella! - Nicola Tarallo - Страница 3

I was fortunate to have a Dad who was born in Gaeta. Why is that? Because when he came to America, he brought with him the passion for making and eating ‘la tiella.’ I grew up in a town near Boston, and our whole family ate tiella at least once a week. I think I ate my first tiella when I was a baby—with barely any teeth! My sisters and I always got excited when it was Saturday, not because there was no school, but because on Saturdays we had tiella for dinner. Tiella di calamari was our favorite. But my mother and father also made other tiellas that rounded out our appreciation for this wonderful food which is a meal in itself, in fact, a perfect meal. We ate tiella of spinach, of escarole, of octopus, of zucchini and eggs.

You can imagine my shock when I was in grade school eating my lunch of tiella, and everyone else was eating either peanut butter and jelly, bologna or ham and cheese sandwiches. I thought, how come they don’t eat tiella? Then it dawned on me: nobody else, unless they had a relative from Gaeta, even knew what a tiella was. They couldn’t even spell it.

So here I am, years later and still relying on tiella from my mother. Why don’t I make my own tiella? Because there are no real recipes. If you ask your Gaetana nonna, ‘Come fai la tiella?’ (How do you make tiella?), you will only get an approximate recipe—some of this and some of that—and nothing will be measured out. But to make the perfect tiella you do need a recipe.

One time, when I was in Gaeta, I met Nicola Tarallo, and we talked about tiella. Nicola had been to the United States often and asked me why no one sells tiella. I told him it was for various reasons, but mostly because Americans have not been introduced to it. He suggested that we write a recipe book exclusively about tiella, with measured amounts and pictures for every step. I said, ‘I want to be the first customer for this recipe guide.’ So, here I was in Boston and there was Nicola in Gaeta, and we collaborated on a set of recipes that anyone can follow to make ‘la tiella Gaetana.’ Explore with us the world of tiella! I promise, with Nicola’s instructions, you and your friends will be rewarded with a gastronomical delight that can only be matched by being in Gaeta itself.

MICHAEL VIOLA

Director of Client Technologies, Warner Babcock Institute