Pasta Grannies is more than a website or a cooking channel, it’s a community. When I started Pasta Grannies a little under 10 years ago, that was at the core of what I wanted to achieve.
I believe cooking is a conversation, a way of transferring ideas to one another, making memories, sharing experiences. And in the spirit of keeping that conversation open with members of the Pasta Grannies community, every month, we field five questions from our Pasta Grannies fans. I take the time out to answer them and celebrate the magic of shared experiences through food, specifically, my favourite food — pasta! So send us your questions, and every month we’ll round them up here. I’ll answer them for you, our Pasta Grannies community members.
What have the Pasta Grannies team been up to recently? When are you next travelling?
Were in Sicily a couple of weeks ago — that was really good fun. We go away filming on location about once every six to eight weeks. It gets a bit expensive to go away. So, our next one is going to be in May — that’ll be Puglia. It’s been about five or six years since we’ve been to Puglia and it’s calling out to us! We we need a few Granny’s from down there so if you’ve got a nonna, please let us know.
How do you find the grannies?
Well, I have a granny finder, Livia, who has been with me for seven or eight years now. She not only finds grannies but does a great deal of research into location scouting, working with the families to arrange a visit, and also supporting in documenting, liaising, and translating. It’s her full-time job um to talk to grandmothers. Well, she actually she often talks to the families of grandmothers. We don’t ever talk to Granny’s in isolation — we always talk to a member of their family first and make sure everybody’s happy and consents to them being filmed. They can change their minds at any time. We have our own network, but we do often work via connections from our extended Pasta Grannies community (i.e. you lot). So, if you do know a Pasta Granny (or Granddad) you’d like us to go and meet, then drop us a line at hello@pastagrannies.com
How do we let you know if we have a granny we’d like you to film? What information do you need from us?
Firstly, please reach out to the granny and their family in advance of contacting us; we always want to make sure they’re interested before we start communicating with them. It’s remarkable the number of people who say ‘I’ve got a great granny’ and then we find out they don’t want to be filmed! So please, please — ask the person that you love, then write to me, the old-fashioned email (hello@pastagrannies.com). It’s unlikely we’ll turn up the next week. It could take a little bit longer, maybe because we’ve just visited that region or we have other trips planned first. We tend to take a considered view of North and South, and different regions. So, it could take a little while to reach your grandmother wherever they happen to be.
Are you willing to explore grandmothers outside of Italy?
Yes, absolutely! We’re exploring the ways in which we could take Pasta Grannies Global. In fact, Virgin Voyages asked me if I would like to go on a cruise, normally I would say no — but then I thought this could be a really good way of visiting bits of the Mediterranean that I wouldn’t actually get to. So, I’ve set myself this task of going around Europe in a week and trying to find a granny in every port. That’s happening in early July. Follow us on socials and join our Pasta Grannies community to read more behind the scenes from this trip. So in summary, yes! We’d love to film abuelas, yia yias, and other grannies worldwide. And, to start And we want to start with you and your stories. If you’ve got a long-standing family recipe, we’d love to hear about them!
In fact, in the spirit of this, we’ve launched our NONNA APPROVED: PASTA GRANNIES RECIPE COMPETITION.
We’re launching a competition for our Pasta Grannies fans, giving you the chance to have your own family stories and creations published on the Pasta Grannies website for all our community to see. The competition will be ‘Nonna Approved’ and real nonne in Italy will be involved in the judging process. We’re looking for both your Pasta Recipes, as well as your favourite recipes handed down to you by your grandparents. Send your recipes to hello@pastagrannies.com before 17th April. For full details, visit the page here.
Do you stay in touch with the grannies after you’ve filmed them?
Yes, we do! (or at least, we try). We really don’t want to ‘use’ our grannies; the grannies and their families become part of our community. It’s hard to stay in touch with everyone as we’ve documented over 500 different grandmothers (and counting!) but we always endeavour to stay close to the families, and recontact them at important moments. For example, recently we recontacted the family of Nonna Irma, our oldest grandmother who turned 105 on 14th March. In fact, she’s such a celebrity in the local village that one Pasta Grannies fan sent a birthday card with nothing other than her name and the town’s name on the envelope and it still managed to make its way to her.
Where do you like to go out to eat pasta outside of your own kitchen?
In London (where I live most of the time) there’s a lot of good places. Some of my favourites for real authentic, tasty, fresh pasta are Dalla in Hackney, Trullo in Islington, and Manteca in Shoreditch. And, for a good glass of Italian wine, I’ll often head to Passione Vino run by Luca Dussi. I met Luca when filming his mother nearly seven years ago for Pasta Grannies. He’s also appeared on our podcast. You can catch up on his mamma’s video from 2017 here, and his recent podcast episode recreating the same dish (minus the chicken livers) here.
Do you have a question you’d like Vicky to answer for the next one of these? Email me, hello@pastagrannies.com.
