“Can I come too??,” I feel like saying when Vicki Bennison, the woman behind the hugely popular, uplifting YouTube channel , says she’s about to head off for another trip to Italy.
“We have adventures, usually it involves getting lost or being in a carb coma at the end of the week because we've been eating so much pasta!”
Of course, it’s not just about the pasta – Pasta Grannies is about hospitality and comfort, and a celebration of the knowledge acquired over a lifetime.
As Bennison writes in the new book Pasta Grannies: Comfort Food, “the Pasta Grannies' cheerfulness and resilience is a source of joy, solace and inspiration. However, they are not cute. Here are ladies who remember a time before antibiotics became widely available, lived through the Second World War, had to grow or forage for food before it could be eaten… and they are still smiling. They know good food, cooked from scratch, nourishes not only the body, but our emotions.”
These women – country, city, shy, chatty – share everything from the simple dishes made all over Italy to recipes found only where they live. Rolled pasta, cut pasta, baked pasta, sweet pasta, savoury pasta, fried pasta (such as the very first recipe in the new book, , a fried ravioli, stuffed with greens, from Liguria. “You’ve got early spring [there] – it’s an absolutely great recipe to do now!” Bennison says when we mention how good it looks).
And given the challenges of the past couple of years, the Italian grandmothers (and occasional grandfather) who invite Bennison – and thus us – into their kitchens in the Pasta Granny YouTube videos have provided not just entertainment and dinner inspiration, but comfort too.
Pasta Granny Adele and her gattafin (fried ravioli). Source: Hardie Grant Books / Lizzie Mayson
“People stop me in the street and say, ‘You've helped me through the pandemic’. It's always very humbling and sparkling to be told that because that's not essentially the purpose but I always say that, you know, people come for pasta and stay for the grannies - there's something very comforting and archetypal about a beloved senior person cooking up some great food,” Bennison says, talking from London ahead of a trip to Abruzzo to film more matriarchs.
“When times get rough … I think it's the recognition that this will pass, so that you're able to stay take a step back. I think personally, that's what you recognise, that these women have made it to 90 and seen through a World War and food shortages, and now there's the pandemic. And they've got through, they’ve recognised the hardship - and the fact that there'll be the other side is kind of helpful for pacing one's own self, I think.”
When Bennison started the channel back in 2015, she wanted to discover and share all the different kinds of pasta made in Italy, but the idea evolved and grew, as her videos of Italian nonne drew a devoted, delighted audience around the globe.
“They're not professionals. They're doing it because they're being generous and want to share, and this is just what they've always done, and I think people connect with that. And really, you could, you know, film Persian grannies. It would be the same, that wonderful sort of hospitality and comfort giving that these women have learned over the years.”
The new book – a sequel to the first Pasta Grannies book, published in 2019, features recipes and episodes that have been especially loved by the more than two million folks who follow the Pasta Grannies channel. And while there’s still a lot of pasta, other comforting staples feature too, including rice, pizza and pastries (as Bennison notes in the book, pasta means dough in Italian) and desserts. 
“There are several great rice dishes in this book. One, for example, , is one that I love making, it's one of the standard ones for the family, in fact. There are lots of rules around risotto and I think it makes people anxious. So, the ones I've included don't have those. In the rici e toci recipe, you just make a chicken casserole, remove the meat while you bung in the rice, then return the meat at the end and voila!
Carla’s risi e tochi (chicken stew risotto from the Veneto). Source: Hardie Grant Books / Lizzie Mayson
“The other one that I make my family a lot is the . That is a great pasta dish. All generations absolutely love it. And if you're short on asparagus, you can whack in a few peas for example and puree them and that works as well.”
We move on to talking about sweet recipes, including one where the QR codes given with each recipe in the book will come in handy for those keen to replicate the pleated folds sealing Pasta Granny Maria’s – sweet baked tortelli filled with chestnut puree, chocolate and jam, then dunked in sapa, a sweet grape syrup. (Of course, Maria’s had many years of practice. As the recipe reassuringly points out, the tortelli will still taste the same if you make half-moon shapes and pinch the edges to close.)
“That's a speciality from the Romagna region. She lives in Faenza and funnily enough, she's arriving in London today with her daughter Graziella to do a demonstration for us. That's a good one. It's a really nice one to do because they can freeze easily and you can make them in advance when there's a dull moment in November or whenever you feel like it. I actually prefer them to mince pies, dare I say.”
Sperandina’s asparagus lasagna. Source: Hardie Grant Books / Lizzie Mayson
Maria with her sweet baked chestnut tortelli (tortelli dolci di castagne). Source: Hardie Grant Books / Lizzie Mayson
One recipe in the book can be sweet or savoury (both versions, the book says, should be doused in good butter): – , hand-rolled potato gnocchi from south Tyrol. “Yes, that’s a nice one!” Bennison says.
Bennison herself didn’t learn to cook from her grandmother – “My granny? Oh my word no, I wasn't allowed in the kitchen. But my Mum was and is a very good cook. My Mum's has just celebrated her 90th birthday. And she got us cooking in the kitchen, both my brother and I, at a very young age.”
Schupfnudeln (potato gnocchi). Source: Hardie Grant Books / Lizzie Mayson
And these days, Bennison is passing on the love of cooking to her own four-year-old grandson. “We’re at the stage where we’re just playing.”
The book, too, recognises readers have different levels of skill and time available to cook.
“This book is a one where I hope people feel inspired to make a range of recipes and don't feel daunted by the idea of fresh pasta, because we're also giving alternatives with dry pasta if people want to do that. We recognise that there's only going to be weekends or when you've got your mates around that you'll make fresh pasta. So, it's about sort of finding inspiration and comfort in reading this book … and we're loving the fact that the QR codes kind of bring you back to the real-life ladies, you can kind of bring them into your kitchen in that way.”
For those who are diving into handmade pasta, the front of the book includes five pages with helpful tips and answers to common questions about making fresh pasta at home. In the chapters that follow, each recipe tells us a little about the woman sharing her dish. Like the channel, it’s both the food and the nonne you’ll love.
Vicki Bennison (far right) with Brigida, one of the nonne in the new Pasta Grannies book. Source: Hardie Grant Books / Lizzie Mayson
The cover features a quote from actor Stanley Tucci (who once said in an interview that Pasta Grannies was his favourite cooking show): “Heart-warming and deliciously comforting”.
He’s spot on.
Image from (Hardie Grant Books, RRP $45 AUD, available in stores nationally). Photography: Lizzie Mayson.
