L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano 7 Leah Ferrazzani: pasta maker in L.A. using the authentic Italian technique Semolina Artisanal Pasta, located in Los Angeles, has an authentic fresh wheat flavor that founder Leah Ferrazzani's tradi- tional methods accomplish in order to keep the Italian her- itage alive. One woman's insis- tent passion on making pasta the old-fashioned Italian way, in small carefully dried batches, is what sets her ridged rigatoni, culturally interesting strozza- preti, curved seashell-shaped ' c o n c h i g l i e ' a n d e x t r a - l o n g looped spaghetti apart from the more common mass-produced, m a c h i n e m a d e b r a n d s w e ' r e used to. Her pasta has a purity o f f l a v o r h a r d t o f i n d 6 , 5 0 0 miles from Italy, and yet here it is, stealing from the past to dis- cover the pasta of the future, brought to life in her LA-based mini-factory. H a v i n g b e e n i n t h e f o o d business since when she was 15 years old, as soon as Ferrazzani discovered that there were only about half a dozen small arti- s a n a l p a s t a p r o d u c e r s i n t h e Country, she decided to start her own with a trip to Gragnano - a hill town south of Naples, Italy - for traditional pasta mak- i n g l e s s o n s . B e g i n n i n g t h i s endeavor in her own kitchen, she transformed her laundry room into a pasta dryer that took about 24-36 hours for her p a s t a t o f u l l y d r y . A s s h e explains, "I was trying to recre- ate the Bay of Naples in my laundry room," because both t h e B a y o f N a p l e s a n d Gragnano are the historic heart for dried pasta. After a success- ful start in her home business, L e a h d e c i d e d t o e x p a n d h e r c a p a c i t y a n d w a s t h e f i r s t signed tenant to a brand new micro-manufacturing facility for commercial food, LA Prep, which now houses 54 individual kitchens, all driven to better the community through better food choices. In January, she got on Kickstarter in order to raise funds for a professional pasta dryer the size of a large walk-in closet. She raised $25,000 from 3 5 0 i n v e s t o r s , d r a m a t i c a l l y increasing her production by n o w b e i n g a b l e t o d r y l a r g e quantities of pasta in about 18- 24 hours. With this new space and new equipment, Ferrazzani estimates that she will be pro- ducing about 750 lbs. of pasta a week. Leah has many secrets up her sleeve to make her pasta stand out. Three main factors that set Semolina Artisanal Pasta apart from a lot of the commercial pasta producers in the U.S. and keep the Italian heritage alive a r e t h e h a n d - t o o l e d b r o n z e pasta dies that give the pasta their shape, the 100% semolina f r o m d u r u m w h e a t g r o w n i n North Dakota and Montana, and also Ferrazzani's slow pasta drying process. She is definitely an adamant traditionalist and h a s i n c o r p o r a t e d a u t h e n t i c Italian methods for her pasta making. Leah is also an advocate in the Slow Food Movement for a b o u t 9 y e a r s n o w . I n t h i s f r a m e w o r k , s h e p r o m o t e s "healthy eating but mindful eat- ing" and most importantly pre- serving flavor and heritage that are both intertwined with quali- ty ingredients. This includes a t y p e o f d u r u m w h e a t c a l l e d Senatore Cappelli that is only grown in a small area of Italy and is on the verge of extinc- tion. "When I conceived of the company, I really wanted to do I t a l i a n p a s t a m a d e i n C a l i f o r n i a , " s a y s L e a h Ferrazzani, and so she does. Semolina Artisanal Pasta origi- nated in Los Angeles and repre- s e n t s a n a u t h e n t i c c h a n g e throughout the food industry by preserving the traditional Italian methods of pasta making. You c a n t a s t e a n d b u y h e r p a s t a p r o d u c t s a t t h e L A I t a l i a n Cultural Institute on the occa- sion of the screening of Slow Food Story on Tuesday, May 19th. H o w d i d y o u d e v e l o p a n interest in pasta making? I love pasta and I love mak- ing things from scratch. I start- ed making fresh pasta when I first moved to Los Angeles and began working as the front of the house manager at Pizzeria Mozza. The first batch I ever made was with my father-in-law b a c k i n M a s s a c h u s e t t s o n a hand-crank machine. We made ravioli that were a bit thick but really, really good. I eventually dialed that in and made fresh pasta of some kind or another about once a week until my son was born in 2011. Then all that free time I had went out the window. By the time I got preg- nant with my daughter, I real- ized that I was relying on the dried pasta in my pantry way more than ever, but I wasn't really loving what I was buying. First I started looking for really good imported pasta, and then I started looking for really good, NANCY CASAS dried, locally made pasta. But there was none of the latter. At the time I had started to think that I wanted to get out of the wine business—I was writing and editing for a local wine retailer—and so I started doing a little research. When I discov- ered that we export a large per- centage of our durum flour to I t a l y f o r t h e m t o m a k e i n t o pasta to send back to us, I got really frustrated. I started won- dering what the Italians knew about making pasta that we did- n't. And so I set out to learn. What is your relationship with the local Italian commu- nity? Do you have customers or partners among them? Like I said, I relate to the world through food, and so my relationship to the Italian com- munity has predominantly been as an eater and cook, whether its in restaurants or seeking out s p e c i f i c i n g r e d i e n t s a t t h e area's Italian markets. Outside of Los Angeles, my passion for food is a huge part of my rela- tionship with my father-in-law, whose family hails from Gaeta. W e b o n d e d i n s t a n t l y o v e r Italian food. I got to reintroduce him to ingredients he hadn't seen since he was a kid. W i t h t h e I t a l i a n d i e t known worldwide for being healthy and particularly with p a s t a , w h a t w o u l d b e y o u r opinion towards the subject and its relation to American culture? I love the Italian relationship t o f o o d , i t ' s s o m u c h l e s s fraught and complicated, and I think it's something we could all learn from here in America. Obviously an important distinc- tion is portion size—whether with pasta or anything else— Italians just don't eat as much as frequently as we do. And they don't snack incessantly. But I've never heard an Italian agonize over the calories in a dessert or tell me they were gluten free (unless of course they had celiac disease). They eat a ton of vegetables, some pasta, far less meat than we do, and they walk everywhere. Has your husband's Italian background influenced you on this in any way? Absolutely! I'd wanted to be Italian since I was five years old. My best friend growing up was Italian. Most of my friends at school were Italian, and I couldn't really understand why I wasn't. I didn't marry my hus- band because I wanted to be Italian, but his father's cannolis didn't hurt! That said, I think my passion for Italian culture has helped him get in better touch with his Italian roots. We went to Gaeta, where his family is from, on our honeymoon. We talk about how h i s f a m i l y h a d t o a s s i m i l a t e based on when they arrived and how Italians were treated at that time. It was definitely my idea t o g i v e o u r c h i l d r e n I t a l i a n names, to preserve some of that family heritage that seems to have been lost a little. And of course, I celebrate it every day when I cook. Leah Ferrazzani and her Semolina pasta

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