Home Food is an Italian organization that invites tourists into private homes to share dinner with local families and experience traditional regional cuisine. The author describes two such dinners - one in Florence featuring foods like liver pate, ravioli, and cod, and one in Rome with dishes showcasing traditions from Rome and Naples. Both meals gave insights into Italian culture and allowed conversation between guests and hosts in different languages. The organization aims to preserve culinary heritage and give a glimpse into Italian home and family life.

1. For Amy Nelson, Pioneer Press
Title Behind Closed Doors in Italy
By Catherine Shannon Ballman
Words 1524
On every trip, the thought occurs: What’s it like to live here? What do the locals do all
day? What are their houses like? Their neighborhoods? Their community politics? What
goes on behind those closed doors?
Since this was Italy with its immense cultural pride, answers to those questions are at
hand and, because it’s Italy, it’s done around food and family. Thanks to Home Food, an
Italian organization created to preserve Italian foodways, tourists are invited into private
homes to share dinner with a local family. Menus are made up of traditional dishes
typical of a specific region or province, using local ingredients and garnished with Italian
hospitality.
Some 2500 years of cooking dinner and contact with the Greeks, Byzantines, Austrians,
Moor, Spanish, Hungarians, French and even American GIs (the rumored, if unlikely,
source material for both tiramisu and spaghetti carbonera) have left Italy with a massive
recipe box. But the recipe box does not travel well. Rather, each region, even every city
and town, of Italy has its own dishes that tell their story of geography and history.
Risotto is the pride of Venice, Campania boasts of Neapolitan pizza and in Trentino,
order the rye bread and sauerkraut. It’s all Italian. Home Food aims to showcase the
richness and diversity of the Italian culinary landscape with programs across the
peninsula, from the Dolomites to Mt. Etna, Bari and Bolzano. Some of the locations are
quite grand while others are simple but everywhere the food is knockout.
And this is precisely what was on the menu during two separate Home Food dinners
this fall. Two very different menus, one in Florence and one in Rome, celebrated the
vast differences among the different cuisines of Italy.
Dinner in Florence took us away from the Duomo, the 1500-year-old historical center
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2. For Amy Nelson, Pioneer Press
Title Behind Closed Doors in Italy
By Catherine Shannon Ballman
Words 1524
of the city. Twenty minutes leisurely walk and over the Arno River via the Ponte
Vecchio, we found ourselves a world away from the fashionable city to a sweet village.
San Frediano in Oltrarno – the neighborhood of San Frediano in the Oltrarno (“other
side of the Arno”) quarter – is rich with artisans and craftspeople, carpenters and
antique dealers, book dealers and gilders, restorers and engravers. Early, we stopped in
Santo Spirito piazza for un vino and were entertained by a flirtation; chasing, laughing
children; and a competition for bragging rights among some young men, topic uncertain.
Market stalls were being dismantled and the restaurants and bars overflowed to the
steps of the church.
But, now time to go and all those second thoughts. Is this a good idea? What if we don’t
like our dinner? What if we don’t like our hosts? What if – gulp – they don’t like us?
We arrived at the address provided by Home Foods and our hosts’ were waiting for us.
Maybe some last minute nerves on their part, too?
Anna and Ilaria welcomed us into their home, poured us an aperitivo and led us back to
the hidden world of Florence. Off the kitchen was a tiled terrace, which led to an
abundant flower garden; we were surrounded by ancient apartments and the low noise
of people coming home, making dinner and being a family. Indoors, we learned that the
white, airy, very modern and very chic house predates 1300; portions were the first
synagogue in Florence.
This historical context jibed neatly with the theme of the dinner, “Dove l’Arno scorre
dolcemente, ospiti della dimora medievale” (or, not as elegantly in translation, “Where
Arno river flowing gently, guests of the medieval residence”). The 5-course menu fitted
the medieval environs with the inclusion of salt cod, an Italian go-to dish for Lenten
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3. For Amy Nelson, Pioneer Press
Title Behind Closed Doors in Italy
By Catherine Shannon Ballman
Words 1524
meals since the 12th
century when introduced by the Normans and still a Christmas Eve
favorite.
 Patè di fegato – Fettunta (pane casereccio con olio nuovo, cannellini cotti al
fiasco)
 Ravioli di ricotta e spinaci burro e salvia
 Baccalà al forno
 Patate, cavolo verza, pomodori, erbette di stagione all’agro
 Zuccotto, Cantucci e Vin Santo
 Rosolio
 Accurata selezione di vini del territorio
Or, liver pate on toasted homemade bread with fresh oil and cannellini beans cooked in
a flask; ravioli with ricotta and spinach with butter and sage; baked cod; potatoes,
cabbage, tomatoes, herbs and sour season, all served with local wines. For dessert, we
enjoyed Zuccotto, Biscotti and Vin Santo and Rosolio, a liqueur made from rose petals.
Ilaria, one of the countrywide network of Home Food cesarine, prepared our meal.
Although she is a professional chef, that is not typical of the Home Food cesarine. Home
Food selects home cooks skilled in the vernacular of their gastronomic region. The meal
should be instantly recognizable to Italians as food that brings family and friends
together at the table. Home Food is adamant that cesarine are not meant to be
restaurateurs or run a business, it’s about being a part of protecting cultural heritage.
Conversation flowed. One of us spoke no English, another no Italian. One had rather
wretched Italian and the fourth, workable English. Yet, the four of us shared travel
stories about Croatia, Sudan, Armenia, Syria and, most recently, Zanzibar, Mexico and
Ireland. Anna is a high school social science teacher so conversation turned to WWII
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4. For Amy Nelson, Pioneer Press
Title Behind Closed Doors in Italy
By Catherine Shannon Ballman
Words 1524
and the utter destruction of the streets on either side of the Arno as Hitler’s trading
chip for limiting bombardment of the beautiful Ponte Vecchio.
Having collected a certain amount of courage, we looked forward to our dinner the
next week in Rome. The scant 175-miles between these two great cities was to be no
measure of the different tastes we were about to savor.
←Themed “Incontro tra due antiche tradizioni : Napoli e Roma” (“Encounter
between two ancient traditions: Naples and Rome”), our Roman dinner party tasted
of Roman tradition. Naples was our cesarina Renata’s homage to her birthplace.
Our menu combined elements of both cooking styles.
On this evening, we were four. Traveling from our hotel in the heart of ancient
Rome along a highway which assuredly has a historical back-story, “Via del due
ponti” (Way of the Two Popes), we traveled to an inner-ring suburb. In place of
crumbling ruins and ersatz gladiators were modern villas and car dealerships. A few
phone calls and a recalcitrant cabbie who only knew the long way later, the charm
of Rome was rekindled by the warm welcomes of Renate and her son, Mario.
Invited along for translation services, Mario was proof positive that the happiest
thing that can happen in a man’s life is to have an Italian mother.
A trip to the large and aromatic garden started another evening under the stars.
Talk was a bit halting initially; one (unspoken) reason cesarina do this work is to
practice their English, unfortunate for the English speaker who hopes to showoff
their Italian. But common ground was found around Renata’s work as an artist. Her
own trompe l’oeil on the doors leading us into the formal dining room charmingly
cataloged details of her life.
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5. For Amy Nelson, Pioneer Press
Title Behind Closed Doors in Italy
By Catherine Shannon Ballman
Words 1524
There was nothing illusory about her food, however. When we moved to the table,
conversation stumbled momentarily by the food that kept coming out of the
kitchen:
 Arancini di riso e spirali di pasta sfoglia farciti
 Sformato di melanzane
 Involtini alla salvia
 Grati di verdure di stagione
 Babà and Gelato alla crema con amaretti
←Or, rice balls and spirals of stuffed puff pastry, eggplant flan, a stunning roulade
with sage, gratin of seasonal vegetables and rum cake with vanilla ice cream and
amaretti. Dessert courses are not often a part of Roman dinners so this was an
extra measure of hospitality. Regional wines were served, along with limoncello as a
special after-dinner treat.
The food was lovely, the people inviting and the conversation lively. And the best
part? Home Food let us step behind closed doors to make new friends and new
understandings.
Sidebar
Home Food (http://www.homefood.it/en/associazione/) is a non-profit project of “The
Association for the Guardianship and Exploitation of the Traditional Culinary-
Gastronomic Heritage of Italy.” It is sponsored by the Ministry of Agricultural Politics in
collaboration with the University of Bologna. In addition to Home Food, they offer
cooking classes, partnerships with DOC and DOP producers and special events, such as
a series of food-related activities around Vermeer’s “The Girl with a Pearl Earring”
when it arrives in Bologna this spring.
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6. For Amy Nelson, Pioneer Press
Title Behind Closed Doors in Italy
By Catherine Shannon Ballman
Words 1524
Interested? To go on your own Home Food “journey,” the term for the individual
programs, go to the website and select the gastronomic evening that appeals and date
that works. On any given evening, there are roughly a dozen “cesarine,” or,
householders, offering dinner. Wherever you find yourself, you are likely to locate a
Home Food event. You must join the association to participate; xxx. Then the average
tab is 50 euro/pp.
Is it safe? Venturing into strangers’ homes – and having strangers come into your
homes – has potential pitfalls. Home Food seems to have designed reasonable
precautions to maintain a feeling of security. Guests do not learn the address/contact
info for the cesarine until after payment. The association knows exact dates, times,
participant names and home and email addresses so awareness is maintained on their
end.
6

7. For Amy Nelson, Pioneer Press
Title Behind Closed Doors in Italy
By Catherine Shannon Ballman
Words 1524
Interested? To go on your own Home Food “journey,” the term for the individual
programs, go to the website and select the gastronomic evening that appeals and date
that works. On any given evening, there are roughly a dozen “cesarine,” or,
householders, offering dinner. Wherever you find yourself, you are likely to locate a
Home Food event. You must join the association to participate; xxx. Then the average
tab is 50 euro/pp.
Is it safe? Venturing into strangers’ homes – and having strangers come into your
homes – has potential pitfalls. Home Food seems to have designed reasonable
precautions to maintain a feeling of security. Guests do not learn the address/contact
info for the cesarine until after payment. The association knows exact dates, times,
participant names and home and email addresses so awareness is maintained on their
end.
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