IULIANO

What was the role of Victor (your father) in this?

He contributed a lot in the work, because in fact with my mom he first started organizing these cooking classes and then a publishing house came asking if he wanted to make a book and mom said, “no, not even for a dream! I don’t know how to write in English! “ then my father said: “well don’t worry, I’ll translate!”

From then on, he wrote all my mom’s words in English, so she handwritten these big sheets and my dad then typed them out, so he had, let’s say, a major role. My father was the one who… well, he managed, let’s say, his church, therefore a kind of manager.

As for you, how did you start following in your mother’s footsteps?

Well… I could have just continued to eat well, which was also a good idea, but after college, I said no!

Let’s go back, in the 76, when my parents opened the cooking school in Bologna (a school for Americans, one of the very first) My mother taught during the day but at the evening lessons, I helped and learned.

I was 17 and as the years went by, I had more and more responsibilities. I started to take people around on the various trips that were made during the day and then towards the end, in the 80s, my mom started teaching in Venice and we moved there. So I started giving cooking classes at home, in Venice, and I even started teaching in the cooking school in Bologna and therefore, in Valpolicella.

But let’s get back to you: how did the idea of resuming the same business as your parents in Italy come about and what is added to yours, different, new?

I went to college in the beginning because I wanted to do theater, and I was part of a theater team. But I didn’t earn anything… and then, I started giving cooking lessons, because it was something I learned to do and therefore, at a certain point, a publishing house wanted to publish a book about pasta. It was published in 93, I wrote it in the years 91-92 and it was a resounding success, it has sold over half a million copies worldwide in over 12 different languages!

Your mother was the inspirer of everything, but what was it like in your opinion or if you remember, cooking In America, before and after Marcella Hazan?

I don’t remember much, I was too young, but I remember that my mother made long trips to go and find an artichoke! Because there were no raw materials such as Parmesan, there is almost nothing of that stuff there, olive oil, there was very little of it so, at that time there was little of ingredients there. So, today it has