Laura Moretti

​Despite the hard work, she recalls constant laughter with her sisters, including childhood squabbles like melting chocolate on a hot polenta lid and arguing over it. Meals at home were simple but filling—tagliatelle with a sauce made from chicken giblets, gnocchi with rabbit, vegetable soups, acquacotta, and panzanella—while her mother, who had learned a more refined style of cooking through work as a nanny, also brought in dishes like fried courgette flowers and roast pork with herbs. The family lived off the land, raising animals and growing their own food, heating the house with wood they cut themselves and cooking on a stove that also warmed the home; in winter they even used a traditional bed warmer, known as a “prete”, a metal container filled with hot embers that was placed under the blankets to heat the bed before sleeping.