Mirella's story
Mirella Guerrini was born on 5 February 1945, Saint Agatha's Day, and was the youngest of seven children. Her father chose the name Mirella in honour of the beautiful daughter of the local mule driver, rejecting her mother's preference for the traditional practice of naming children according to the saints' calendar or after relatives. In 1949, when Mirella was only four years old, tragedy struck the family. From that moment, her mother was overwhelmed by grief and her health was never the same again, eventually losing her sight as well.
During that period, the family worked as sharecroppers on a farm in the area. The agricultural agreements were strict, and every single resource had to be shared with the landowner—so much so that they could not eat even a bunch of grapes or a chicken without asking for permission.
Later on, at the age of eleven, after finishing primary school, Mirella moved with her family to Montorio, to the large farmstead at Santa Rosa. At first, the household was very large, including the parents, the children, and a man employed by her father to look after the pigs, who lived and worked alongside them. On this farm, they raised cattle, pigs, and sheep, which ensured a steady daily supply of milk for the family.
Life on the farmstead was defined by hard work. The house had neither running water nor electricity, and fetching water was a relentless daily chore. To cook, Mirella first had to light the fire and prepare the embers. In the mornings, they drank barley coffee, which the family roasted and prepared themselves on the farm; only during the summer, when an aunt returned from Rome, would they enjoy the luxury of real ground coffee. Breakfast was served faithfully at half past eight. In the winter, after the family slaughtered their two large annual pigs, meals would consist of fresh sausage, polenta, cured meats, or a rich omelette stewed with beans and sliced into thin strips resembling tripe. Mirella vividly remembers the sausages being hung to dry on wooden poles before being stored in wicker baskets, cushioned by hay above and below to keep them fresh. Others were preserved in glass jars filled with oil, which was later reused for cooking. For an afternoon snack, a simple slice of bread with an anchovy or some capocollo was a favourite.
Outside in her villlage
When Mirella was around thirteen or fourteen, her older brothers and sisters moved to Rome. Until then, responsibility for the kitchen had passed from her mother to her sister-in-law, and then to her sister. Once they left, Mirella remained at the farmstead with her father, her blind mother, and another brother. At just fourteen years old, she suddenly found herself responsible for running the entire household, taking over the cooking and learning how to sew.
She remembers her very first kitchen experiments perfectly. The first dish she ever prepared was tagliatini for bean soup, a humble family staple; however, the soup turned out far too thick. On her second attempt at making fresh pasta sheets (sfoglia), the dough was too soft; once rolled out, it was so full of holes that her father jokingly asked, “Did you make it with a machine gun?” Her first experience baking bread was equally challenging. Mirella could not remember how to tell when the wood-fired oven had reached the correct temperature. Her mother, who was already blind, tried to explain it by voice, but to no avail. To make matters worse, Mirella used too much yeast, the dough was too soft, and the bread collapsed completely. A kind neighbour came to the rescue to salvage the dough, cutting it into pieces to make focaccia seasoned with olive oil, rosemary, and salt.
Alongside cooking, Mirella developed a deep passion for sewing and learned to knit woollen jumpers. Unable to afford a sewing machine outright, a merchant from Castell’Ottieri allowed her to buy one in monthly instalments of 5,000 lire—a significant sum for a young girl at the time. To earn the money, Mirella started a proper daily job delivering fresh milk on foot to homes and farms in Castell’Ottieri. Setting out from Santa Rosa, she cut across fields and walked through the "Castagnone" area, carrying her father’s cow’s milk in half-litre glass bottles or traditional quarter-litre glass measures known locally as quartucci. She delivered around ten litres a day, and at the end of the month, families paid her sixty lire per litre. As a young girl, Mirella was strong, energetic, and loved her food. As a young girl, Mirella was strong, energetic, and loved her food. She still fondly remembers waiting for the arrival of the ice-cream cart, and how she would search through every pocket to scrape together the twenty lire needed to buy it.
Mirella mastered the secrets of fine cooking from two major influences. The first was an aunt who had spent many years in service as a cook in Orvieto. She taught Mirella how to prepare rabbit with capers and anchovies: first draining the meat of its liquid, then browning it with finely chopped garlic and onion, deglazing with wine, and finally enriching it with anchovies and capers (with a splash of vinegar added only if the flavour became too sweet, though Mirella preferred it without). This aunt shared an exceptionally close bond with her; so much so that, in later life, she refused to marry until she had received the heartfelt approval of both Mirella and her husband. The second influence was her brother-in-law, a pastry chef, from whom she learned the art of making custard, her beloved zupa inglese, soft doughnuts (bomboloni), and lemon desserts. For Mirella, the secret behind every successful dish has always been the same: passion.
In her mother's arms, with her family.
During their courtship, Mirella and Carlo enjoyed the simple pleasures of the era. Carlo, a local barber and a friend of Mirella’s brother, was a frequent visitor to the family home. He was a wonderful young man, always dependable and ready to hop on his Vespa to run errands in Sorano or go all the way to Grosseto for the family. He even won over one of Mirella’s aunts visiting from Rome, who adored his courtesy. On 23 September 1967, twenty-two-year-old Mirella married twenty-nine-year-old Carlo. It was a traditional, close-knit village wedding: one neighbour prepared the sweets, while another lent plates for the reception. Although Mirella would have liked to move to Rome, confident that her knitting skills would find her work, Carlo preferred to stay in the village. Together they built a beautiful family, raising a nephew with immense love as well.
For twenty years, Mirella worked at the nursing home in Sorano.
She began by making beds and assisting residents, but her culinary talent soon shone through, and she moved permanently into the kitchen, which became her true domain. With her very first wages, she treated herself to a beautiful set of stainless-steel cookware, having always had a particular weakness for pots and pans.
At the age of fifty, she chose early retirement to care for Carlo during an illness. Carlo, meanwhile, was passionate about his vegetable garden, spending his time tending to tomatoes, zucchini, and leafy greens. He also loved buying and preparing fresh fish.
For many years, the couple were regulars at the social club in Selvena, where they loved to dance.
Once the club realised how talented Mirella was in the kitchen, they invited her to run the catering side of their events alongside a woman named Liliana. From then until activities ceased during the Covid pandemic, Mirella spent every Sunday balancing her love of dancing with cooking tripe, New Year lentils, lasagne, polenta with mushrooms, and rice fritters (frittelle di riso) for the community. She also volunteered at "Tradenda", a music festival held for a few years in Castell’Ottieri, where she made the famous Pappa al pomodoro bread soup using garlic, onion, tomato, and Parmesan. Yet her strongest connection to local festivities was undoubtedly her role as head cook for Castell’Ottieri’s renowned medieval festival. She led the festival kitchens for many years, and even today she continues to offer her invaluable help. Throughout the village, she is widely respected and recognised as the cook par excellence.
In her spare time nowadays, Mirella enjoys playing cards. She says she no longer has the hearty appetite she once did, but she remains meticulous in the kitchen and wastes nothing from Carlo’s vegetable garden, transforming its produce into soups, savoury zucchini dishes, and parmigiana.
Among her signature dishes are homemade tagliatelle and lasagne; crêpes filled with ricotta, spinach, and béchamel sauce (whereas in the past she often made traditional tortelli); and a simple tomato sauce made, as she insists, with sliced carrots. She often prepares meatballs—which she jokes she could happily serve to her daughter every day—as well as lamb offal (coratella) and wild boar. Her wild boar is first soaked in water and lemon, then floured and browned in a pan, with bay leaves reserved exclusively for this particular game meat. She also cooks roast turkey with potatoes and lentils.
When it comes to desserts, whenever Carlo’s niece visits from Modena, she is greeted with freshly made castagnole, prepared right as she arrives, even in the height of summer. Mirella also regularly bakes tozzetti and anicini, the traditional aniseed biscuits. Once a week, without fail, she prepares her classic ricotta cake according to the old family recipe: 300 grams of ricotta, 300 grams of sugar, 300 grams of flour, and a sachet of baking powder, baked for just under an hour in a well-greased tin. For breakfast these days, she enjoys crispbreads with jam or a slice of her homemade cake, although she still occasionally treats herself to a cappuccino and a warm croissant at the local café.
Even when facing adversity, Mirella has never given up: three years ago, in 2023, she suffered a stroke that initially caused her to lose mobility in her left hand. Through extraordinary willpower and sheer determination, she made a full recovery, enabling her to fully regain the use of her hand so she could go back to rolling out fresh pasta—a great passion of hers that truly makes her face light up.
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With her husband Carlo