These Italian grandparents want to teach you their food traditions

Learn how to make charcuterie, heirloom pasta and meatballs from people who want to share their classic Italian culinary skills.

Nonna Sarina and nonno Franco holding his rustic Sicilian sausages. Source: Assaggio

Nonna Lina breaks into song while rolling her homemade savoiardi in icing sugar, Nonno Franco hands out soft-boiled pork rind for people to nibble on while preparing his famous Sicilian sausages, and Nonna Carmelina skillfully cuts vegetables for her much-loved caponata. Through a website called Assaggio, Italian nonni (grandparents) living in Australia are not only flexing their cooking prowess, they're also using this platform to preserve and share their traditions.  

Via subtitled video classes, each of the nonni shares a personal recipe directly from their own kitchen. In English, and more often in Italian (sometimes even in Sicilian), they impart their experience, quirks and stories along the way. From sauce and meatballs to special-occasion dishes like heirloom pasta, the grandparents recreate their treasured family recipes – step by step. All the recipes are linked to a playlist of Italian songs to cook to and a short video of each nonni. Here they talk about where they were born, their migration story and the origins of the recipe they share on the site. In the cooking classes, all the grandparents are assisted by the website’s founder, Chiara Barbera.

The nonni swapping old Italian recipes. Source: Assaggio

The granddaughter of Italian immigrants, Brisbane-based Barbera (who has a background in communications) launched Assaggio in November last year. Growing up, she spent a lot of time with her grandparents who lived close by. From eagerly observing her grandfather in her parent’s garden each morning to watching her great uncle make wine or attending her grandmother’s long–standing weekly Sunday lunch, many of Barbera’s childhood memories are inextricably linked with family. “Most of my memories are either in the garden or in the kitchen with them… because that's kind of where they spent most of their time,” says Barbera.

The idea for the site came about during the pandemic. The self-professed ‘nonni enthusiast’ noticed their traditional skills weren't being passed down to the next generation, and they also weren’t being valued. This realisation became the catalyst for creating Assaggio, which preserves, documents and shares their invaluable expertise and knowledge, all while honouring these Italian elders at the same time.

Nonna Carmelina's summer-evoking caponata. Source: Assaggio

“I was just really saddened to see that there's all these incredible people, especially nonni that were at home that have lived through the most incredible life circumstances that one could possibly imagine. And they've learned everything from how to cook in poverty and how to survive through the winter months where there's snow for six months of the year… and they were just at home and people weren't really giving them a lot of attention or appreciation for what they can do or what they can teach us.”

The Assaggio nonni, like all cooks, have developed their own techniques over the years. Nonna Carmelina likes to blitz canned peeled tomatoes in a blender to make the sugo for her famous polpette, nonno Franco has a specific way he massages the mince meat for his Sicilian sausages, but the most memorable method is nonna Sarina’s way of beating eggs for her crumbed steaks. Instead of using a fork and bowl, her secret tool is her electric milkshake maker.

“It saves beating them [the eggs] by hand… this is quicker. It makes it [the egg mixture] nice and fluffy,” she says.

Nonna Sarina's crumbed steaks. Source: Assaggio

Through Assaggio, Barbera aims to share other kinds of Italian traditions – new categories include a gardening and pastimes section. The website’s main focus, though, is the recipes.

They've learned everything from how to cook in poverty and how to survive through the winter months where there's snow for six months of the year… and they were just at home and people weren't really giving them a lot of attention or appreciation.

Assaggio currently features six nonni including two of Barbera’s own grandmothers (nonna Carmelina and nonna Lina), as well as nonna Sarina (her great aunt) and nonno Franco (Barbera’s great uncle). Between them, they've contributed eight cooking classes, with more being added. Some of the most-viewed classes are nonna Carmelina's sauce and meatballs lesson, nonna Sarina's crumbed steaks tutorial and nonno Franco’s guide to making Sicilian–style sausages.

For Barbera, though, there’s a bigger takeaway from the nonni wisdom she’s gleaned over the years. “I think it's also about preparing it [food] with love, for the people you love, to bring everyone together. I think that that's one of the most magical parts about our culture.”

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