Immacolata's Story
Immacolata Fàzzari was born in Calabria in 1968, in a small coastal town near Gioia Tauro. Her father was a farmer: he worked the land, tended the vegetable garden, and looked after a grove of ancient olive trees. Her mother worked in the greenhouses in San Ferdinando, which were very famous at the time as the only company in the area. They wholesaled house plants, imported cuttings from the Netherlands, and produced some varieties directly. Both Immacolata and her sister began working there at an early age: her sister at 14, and Immacolata at 16.
Her sister met an electrician from Montevitozzo who was in Calabria for a temporary assignment at the greenhouses, sent by the electrical company he worked for. The two fell in love and, after their marriage, as was the custom at the time, her sister moved to live with her husband's family. Immacolata decided to follow her to Tuscany to support the new family and help with her child. She vividly remembers her first evening in Montevitozzo: they arrived during a thunderstorm and everything was dark, but despite this, she immediately felt at home and fell in love with the place. She loved country life, the animals, and the silence. Later, she met Enrico, who came from Cerretino, and became her husband. He came from a farming family, and for several years Immacolata looked after the sheep and learned how to make cheese; they also kept geese, ducks, turkeys, chickens, and rabbits—a small farm.
In the kitchen with porcini mushrooms
When she began working at Il Cornacchino, in the hills above Castell’Azzara, in 2000, they decided to give up the sheep because Enrico had another job and could no longer manage everything. For a time, she looked after the rooms in the agriturismo. Then, one of the owners asked her to work in the kitchen, where she remained for six years. Afterwards, she took over the management of the bar in Castell’Azzara for twelve years, partly to give her children an opportunity, as they did not want to continue their schooling. After leaving the bar, she worked as a cook in various restaurants until she was invited back to Il Cornacchino. She happily accepted because she knew the environment and loved to cook; at Il Cornacchino, she feels like part of the family. Today, her speech carries distinct Tuscan inflections—a manner of speaking she consciously adopted over the years to help her children when they were young, as they used to write using Calabrian dialect.
Since she was a young girl, Immacolata has always been interested in cooking, especially baking. She used to buy recipe magazines and try out the dishes whenever she could. Today, the flavours of Calabria and Tuscany coexist in her kitchen, alongside the memories and skills she has carried with her over the years. Immacolata prefers simple flavours without too many spices, as she wants to taste the true flavor of the ingredients.
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Making focaccia
Of the olive groves they had in Calabria, she remembers that the trees were immense. To harvest the olives, they had to wait until they were ripe enough for the wind to make them fall naturally. The soil was very fine, and the ground was beaten until it felt almost like a solid floor. The olives were swept into piles using homemade broomcorn brooms and then cleaned using the "crivevi" (or crivello), a traditional manual sieve made of wooden hoops wrapped around a wicker or wire mesh. The women would toss the olives in the air with a rhythmic movement; this shaking caused the leaves and soil debris to fly away or fall through the gaps, leaving only the clean olives inside the hoop.
She has always made fresh pasta, ever since she was young, alongside her mother. In Calabria, pasta is prepared simply with flour and water, without eggs, using a thin steel rod to create a shape similar to strigoli or pici. She learned how to make egg pasta later on in Tuscany, after her marriage. Bread, focaccia, and leavened doughs are her favourites; she makes Calabrian focaccia with tomato, garlic, oregano, salt, and olive oil. Pizza, her absolute favourite food, is prepared with a two-day fermentation process and often served as part of a buffet with toppings like gorgonzola and pear, radicchio and gorgonzola, margherita, buffalo mozzarella, or fresh vegetables. She also loves ribollita, which she cooks using cavolo nero (Tuscan kale) from her garden. One of her most personal recipes is “pasta mediterranea” (Mediterranean pasta)—a dish where her Calabrian origins meet her life in Tuscany, made with aubergines, wild fennel, oregano, chilli, raisins, pine nuts, and black olives.
Of her childhood, she fondly remembers the zeppole her mother—now 87 years old—still prepares during celebrations, both sweet and savoury, the latter filled with 'nduja or sausage and cheese. Back then, her father tended to the vegetable garden every day, meaning there was never a shortage of fresh produce, just as there was never a shortage of fresh fish, which he would often buy in the mornings directly from the fishermen at the port. Fish remains one of Immacolata's great passions, and she knows how to cook it beautifully.
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Outside in the garden