Local Star
Elisa Costantini
Newtown Square’s Famous Italian Cookbook Author by Christina Manning Photos courtesy of Elisa Costantini Newtown Square resident Elisa Costantini was born in 1938 in Poggio Valle, Italy. She started cooking at age six, with her aunt, who trusted only her blood relatives to help cook the big feasts for the town. “My aunt made us work in the middle of the night,” Elisa said, “so no one could steal the recipes!” When Elisa was nine, she became the cook for her entire family. That required her to wake up at 2:30am, to start making the bread. Unfortunately, her responsibilities also required her to drop out of school. When she was 23, Elisa came to the US for the first time. “I had to show up on a certain day,” Elisa said, “otherwise I would have lost my US citizenship, which I inherited from
Italian cookbook author Elisa Costantini
my mother, who had been born in Camden, NJ.” As if that wasn’t challenging enough, Elisa had to come to the US by herself, leaving behind her husband, Francesco, and their one-year-old daughter Nadia, because their paperwork wasn’t ready in time. “Leaving your husband to care for your child was unheard of back then,” she recalled. Alone
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