L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 26 L'Italo-Americano M aria Lucia Luon- go is a w oman who takes joy in the simple plea- s ures of life: cooking, fashion, yoga, friend- ships. For the past 70 years, life's twists and turns have taken her from her roots in Naples to the city of Perugia, where she has lived since 1993. Along the way, she spent three years as a lecturer in Italian language and literature at Canberra's Australian Nation- al U nivers ity and tw o years teaching at New York University and Queens College. She is cur- rently a professor of the history of Italian food at the Pieve Inter- national School in Perugia. R e c e n t l y , s h e v i s i t e d t h e Northwest as part of a promo- tional tour for her new book, C u c i n a r i a : L e t t e r s f r o m t h e Kitchen, published in 2018 by Morlacchi. Luongo held two culinary workshops in Seattle in May that explored the food and s t o r i e s o f h e r h o m e t o w n o f Naples. The idea for the book came from a surprise discovery Luon- go made in 2003. While cleaning out some drawers, she found an old album with a worn leather cover. Inside was an assortment o f f r a g i l e , y e l l o w e d p a p e r s , some with edges torn, others stained with ink. "At first I thought they were love letters written by my par- ents," she said. "Then I saw they were recipes. A century ago, of course, there was no email, no Internet. To stay connected, people would write out and share recipes. I was afraid the samples I found would not last long, they were so fragile, so I transcribed them and published them for my own use, just to preserve them." The recipes were written by three women who played impor- tant roles in Luongo's life: her mother Nina; a neighbor from her childhood days, Esther; and a f a m i l y f r i e n d , M a r i a . T h e recipes, notes and snippets of culinary advice from these three women form the basis of "Cuci- naria." "These recipes revealed the stories and sentiments of my f a m i l y a n d o f w o m e n w h o passed through our homes and our lives for the past 100 years," Luongo wrote in the book's fore- word. "My inspiration in collect- ing and recording these recipes is to listen to their voices and preserve their culinary legacy." The book describes Nina as a creative cook who relished her role in the kitchen and never pre- p a r e d t h e s a m e d i s h t w i c e . Esther came from a prosperous f a m i l y a n d w a s p a r t i c u l a r l y skilled in pasta making. With RITA CIPALLA Sharing recipes among friends: a simple joy transcends the ages in ter n atio n al co mp etitio n to teach language abroad, and she spent the next five years in Aus- tralia and New York City. She m i g h t h a v e s t a y e d o v e r s e a s longer but her godmother Tina, whose mother Esther was one of the women highlighted in the book, needed her. " T i n a h e l p e d m e t h r o u g h many difficult years after losing m y h u s b a n d , " s a i d L u o n g o . "Now she was getting older. She had never married and was all alone in Naples. I returned from New York so I could spend the last part of her life with her. I bought a house in Perugia on two levels, filled with light and b e a u t i f u l v i e w s o f t h e o l d town." The two women moved in together until Tina's death in 2013. It was in Perugia that Luongo met Rossella Vasta, director of the Pieve International School. The two became friends, getting together often to talk and cook. In 2009, Vasta invited Luongo to join the staff at Pieve to teach the history of Italian cuisine. Luongo also offers workshops in her home. " M y c l a s s a t P i e v e w a s d e s i g n e d w i t h A m e r i c a n s i n mind, who often have a stereo- typical idea of Italian food," said Luongo. "A typical class might cover the history of pasta or street food from the Romans to today." Although her home is now in Perugia, Luongo's heart is never far from her roots in Naples. "Wherever I am, the Italian cui- sine recalls for me the memory of my origins, my family and t h e i m p o r t a n t w o m e n i n m y life," she wrote in her book. "They left with me forever their gift of strength, grace and cre- ativity." Maria, who was 70 years old when Luongo met her, the two women shared conversations about food and cooking. "Although the recipes tell the story of these women, in reality the recipes themselves are not key," said Luongo. "What I wanted to do was preserve the l i v e s a n d h i s t o r i e s o f t h e s e women who were so important to me, and in doing so, to pre- serve the special culinary fla- vors of Naples." Luongo, who turns 70 this y e a r , h a s a l o n g a n d d i s t i n - guished career as a teacher and j o u r n a l i s t . S h e r e c e i v e d h e r undergraduate degree from the University of Naples and a mas- ter's degree in intercultural edu- cation from the University of Rome. She has co-authored sev- eral textbooks and has written f o r f a s h i o n m a g a z i n e s f r o m Donna to Mondo Uomo. Maintaining connections with family and friends is important to Luongo. Her husband died young, leaving her with two teenage sons. "It was hard to manage with two kids alone in a big town like Naples," she said. "I was a free-lance journalist at the time but that is not a good life for a single mother. So I returned to my earlier career: teaching Italian language and literature." S h e m o v e d t o P e r u g i a i n 1993 to be closer to her sons who attended college there. "It was hard to leave Naples," she said, "and for the first few years, I felt so alone. I went back and forth to Naples often. But year by year, I discovered the rich- ness of Perugia, an extraordi- nary city with so much history and art." I n 2 0 0 5 , L u o n g o w o n a n Luongo (left) led two culinary workshops in Seattle, where she created a four-course dinner while discussing the food and stories of Naples A dinner and cooking demonstration featuring recipes drawn from Luongo's book attracted Seattle food-lovers SEATTLE ITALIAN COMMUNITY

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