Carlo and Valentine, my maternal grandparents, arrived in Peking on 24 June 1911. It had been a long and rather dull month at sea, scarcely enlivened by the stiff meals of rather plain food at the Captain’s table. On docking, they were instantly engulfed by the many exotic sights, tastes and smells of China. It took them a little time to get used to and appreciate the new flavours they were offered: fresh ginger, star anise, fermented, salty sauces and the ever-present steamed or boiled rice. In China, my Nonna developed a lifelong preference for Lapsang Souchong tea, and its smoky aroma never fails to remind me of her.
My grandparents were to witness, often at first hand, a period of great unrest – punctuated by violence and war – as China struggled through a very difficult period in its history. The empire was disintegrating after the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in 1911. For over 2,000 years, China’s government had centred on a monarchy; now, for the first time, the country was without an emperor. Her Imperialist glory days were behind her – and China was a nation in decline, heavily controlled by foreign powers.
Peking had many European residents in the early 1900s, whose lifestyle could not have been more different to that of the Chinese citizens. The Europeans attempted to continue their routines and habits as though they were still at home, and they effectively treated the locals as their slaves. In hindsight, it was not surprising that the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, which took place in the north and was ignited by anti-imperialist feeling, had found so many supporters in Peking.
A decade later, when Valentine and Carlo arrived in China, ripples from that nationalist uprising were still being felt. The foreign diplomats and their consorts, who welcomed Valentine and Carlo upon their arrival, lived in abject terror of the horrors of the rebellion happening all over again. My Nonna Valentine, over Lapsang Souchong tea and rather solid Chinese buns with the other Legation wives, heard all about the famous German Baron von Ketteler, who had been dragged from his sedan chair and brutally murdered at the start of the uprising.
Carlo and Valentine’s official residence was in the Legation, situated close to the other diplomatic homes, which encouraged neighbourliness and a much-needed sense of unity and safety in numbers. Carlo had been posted to China before and was far better equipped to adjust to the dramatic differences in culture and the constant sense of danger and instability that surrounded them. Despite the problems, he always loved China, feeling the lure of the country most deeply, and he returned twice more in the course of his career, bringing back many beautiful items, many of which were passed on to me.
My Nonna would tell me how Carlo would delight in causing scandal among some of their more toffee-nosed neighbours. When it was hot he would love to pace around the veranda and garden wearing only his beautiful, bright-red silk kimono, which exposed rather more of his body than they wished to see. The neighbours’ servants would arrive periodically on the doorstep to deliver stiffly worded, hand-written notes expressing their mistresses’ complaints, to which Carlo took enormous pleasure in replying with the words: “Madam, if you do not wish to see, simply do not look!” He would then position himself deliberately where he could best be seen from every one of the adjacent houses, reading a book calmly in the sunshine.
Carlo discovered that, in Valentine, he had the best ally and confidante. She had a strong sense of the ridiculous, coupled with an amazing ability to rise above both her disgust and fear, which cannot have been easy in China during this time. Many years later, when I would visit her for tea after school in Rome, she would tell me the story of how she would hide inside the Italian Legation, peeping through the branches of the mimosa tree planted beneath her window, watching the latest riot unfolding in the street below. She would describe calmly, between bites of chocolate cake, how there were many casualties and that the fighting often raged for hours.
It was Valentine’s responsibility, in the midst of all this ugliness outside the Legation, to behave like an Ambassadress, entertaining regularly – conventions she had learned only too well through the long years of supporting her father in his various diplomatic postings around the world. One of the most memorable events for her was when the three princesses from the Manchu dynasty came to an official dinner. Valentine had tried very hard with the menu, attempting a meal that at least leaned towards being Italian, even though so many ingredients were not available. She tried, unsuccessfully I am told, to get the cook to create some kind of a pasta dish using Chinese noodles and tomatoes. Try as she might, though, it was too hard to persuade the cook to limit the hot, spicy quality of many of the dishes and the seemingly endless number of them served.
My mother, Fiammetta, with Nonno Carlo.
As it turned out, Valentine need not have worried about trying to make the meal taste authentic or be in any way representative of Italian food. As far as the princesses were concerned, anything they did not like to eat or drink could simply be tossed over their shoulders onto the floor. And anyway, the food was not half as interesting as the toilet: they spent half the evening flushing it and shrieking with laughter as they watched the water gurgle away. Flushing toilets were something of a rarity in China in those days – they were a novelty, even for royalty.
On 3 October 1914, at the age of 39, Valentine gave birth in her home in Peking to Fiammetta, my mother. War had broken out in Europe and the time was fast approaching when Carlo and Valentine would have to return home. Most of the British nannies in Peking had already gone back to take up their nursing careers in their war-torn homeland so Valentine hired a tama (a Japanese nurse) to care for Fiammetta. (The other ladies in the diplomatic corps reliably informed her that they were considerably cleaner than the Chinese nurses, who had a tendency not to wash very often.)
The following year, the family sailed on to their next posting in Belgrade, only to discover in the course of the long voyage that all the diplomatic families had already been evacuated to Corfu, where their ship was duly diverted. They spent a few worrying years on the Greek island, wondering what would happen. Valentine tried to keep calm for the sake of her two-year-old daughter and her baby son, Sforzino, but it was hard. She and Carlo heard some blood-curdling tales about what was going on in mainland Europe from the various retreating Yugoslavian soldiers who appeared sporadically on the island.
Carlo was fast becoming a recognized and respected political voice, and the family was recalled to Rome in June 1919. The following year, Carlo was elected senator to the Kingdom of Italy and the family moved into the Ministerial residential building of La Consulta, situated opposite the Palazzo del Quirinale, where Carlo was to work. Both children began their formal education at the original Maria Montessori School.
Many years later, as a little girl, when I visited my grandmother in her flat in Rome, I always felt awed by her amazing collection of Chinese antiques and memorabilia. If I was very good, I would be allowed to play very carefully with some of the pieces. Only now, on reading Nonna’s letters and looking through her photographs, do I really appreciate what an incredible woman she was to have come through so many turbulent experiences unscathed.
Carlo never took to Chinese food, but my Nonna passed down her love of it to my mother, and through her to me. Whenever my father took us to our favourite Chinese restaurant in Soho, London, however, I was always disappointed that my mother did not know how to use chopsticks, despite spending time in the Far East. With the logic of a child, I had always presumed she would handle them like a native.
Above, my mother with her Japanese tama. Left, Carlo and Valentine, pictured far left.
As a tribute to my grandmother’s love of Lapsang Souchong tea, I have used it as the base of the smoking mixture in this recipe. Whenever my mother and I prepared this together, we made sure all the kitchen windows were open, as the aroma of the smoking tea is all-pervasive and persistent.
Serves 4
Preparation time: about 20 minutes, plus 15 minutes resting
Cooking time: about 1 hour 15 minutes
2kg/4lb 8oz whole prepared duck, excess fat removed
125ml/4fl oz/½ cup soy sauce
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
100g/3½oz/½ cup long-grain white rice
50g/1¾oz/¼ cup Lapsang Souchong tea leaves
115g/4oz/½ cup granulated sugar
shredded Chinese cabbage, cucumber batons, chopped spring onions and steamed rice (optional), to serve
Rinse the duck thoroughly with boiling water, then pat dry with kitchen paper. Lightly prick the skin all over with a skewer or thin-bladed knife, but do not pierce the meat.
Put three-quarters of the soy sauce, the star anise, cinnamon stick and 125ml/4fl oz/½ cup water in the base of a large steamer. Alternatively, use a large saucepan fitted with a wire rack. Put the duck in the steamer basket or on the rack, cover and steam, topping up with extra boiling water if necessary, for 45 minutes or until the duck is cooked through and the juices run clear when a thigh is pricked with a sharp knife. Reserve 6 tablespoons of the pan juices.
Line a large wok or heavy-based roasting tin with thick aluminium foil. Mix together the rice, tea and sugar and add to the wok. Fit a cake or roasting rack on top so that it is about 2.5cm/1in above the rice mixture. Put the duck, breast side up, on the rack, then cover with a double layer of foil and/or a lid – the covering should be at least 2.5cm/1in above the top of the duck. Make sure there are no gaps around the edge of the wok or tin.
Put the wok or tin over a high heat. When the mixture begins to smoke (try to patch up any gaps in the foil) cook for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to medium and smoke for a further 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave to rest, covered, for another 15 minutes. Remove the duck from the wok or tin, discard the smoking mixture and foil. Carve the duck and serve on top of a bed of Chinese cabbage, cucumber and spring onions. Heat the reserved pan juices with the remaining soy sauce and spoon it over the duck. Serve with rice, if liked.
This is not an authentic Chinese recipe, of course, but it was a great favourite of my Nonna’s. I like to prepare the greens with an Italian twist, using a combination of pak choi and savoy cabbage or cavolo nero.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus 1 hour marinating
Cooking time: 40 minutes
1kg/2lb 4oz pork tenderloin, trimmed of fat
6 tbsp clear honey
4 tsp sesame seeds
3–4 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1–2 tsp dried chilli flakes
150g/5½oz shiitake mushrooms, halved
2 pak choi, quartered lengthways
8 large savoy cabbage or cavolo nero leaves, shredded
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
steamed brown or white rice, to serve (optional)
Marinade:
6 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, crushed
6cm/2½in piece of root ginger, grated
1 hot chilli, deseeded if you like and finely chopped
Mix together the marinade ingredients in a large, shallow, non-metallic dish. Remove 2 tablespoons of the marinade and leave to one side. Put the pork in the remaining marinade and turn it to make sure it is well coated. Cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Remove the pork from the marinade and gently pat dry with kitchen paper. Discard the marinade. Brush the pork all over with the honey. Tip the sesame seeds onto a plate, then roll the tenderloin in the sesame seeds until well coated. Transfer the pork to a lightly greased rack over a roasting tin. Roast for 25–30 minutes, turning occasionally, until cooked through. Leave to rest for 5 minutes.
While the pork is resting, heat a large wok or frying pan over a high heat, then add the oil and stir-fry the garlic and chilli for 30 seconds, without letting the garlic colour. Add the mushrooms, pak choi and cabbage and toss together, turning them in the flavoured oil until well coated. Add the reserved marinade and 100ml/3½fl oz/generous 
cup water, then season with salt and pepper and stir-fry for 5 minutes, or until the mushrooms, pak choi and cabbage are tender. Slice the pork and serve with the vegetable stir-fry and rice, if liked.
My mother and I devised this recipe together. I would have loved to cook it for my Nonna if she were still here to enjoy it with me.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
2 tbsp vegetable oil
200g/7oz small broccoli florets
1 onion, thinly sliced
150g/5½oz pak choi, thinly sliced
150g/5½oz mangetout
150g/5½oz shiitake mushrooms, sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp ground star anise
¼ tsp ground coriander
450g/1lb king scallops, roes removed
125ml/4fl oz/½ cup chicken stock
4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2–3 tsp soy sauce
steamed rice or egg noodles, to serve
Heat a large wok or frying pan over a high heat until very hot, then add the oil and stir-fry the broccoli and onion for 3–4 minutes.
Add the pak choi, mangetout, mushrooms, garlic, star anise and coriander and stir-fry for a further 2–3 minutes.
Add the scallops, chicken stock, vinegar and soy sauce. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 3 minutes, or until the scallops are just cooked through and the vegetables are tender. Serve immediately with rice or noodles.
My mother always told me that I inherited my passion for this mysterious-tasting fruit from both her and my grandmother. This recipe makes a delicately flavoured sorbet, which is ideal to serve at the end of several rich courses. I like to sprinkle it with some edible flowers, such as the palest pink rose petals, and serve with a couple of fresh whole lychees in a Martini glass.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus cooling and 4 hours freezing
30 ripe lychees, peeled and stoned
10g/¼oz powdered gelatine
60g/2¼oz/½ cup icing sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
Using the back of a large metal spoon, squash the lychees in a sieve over a bowl and squeeze out the juice. Discard the lychee pulp.
Pour 500ml/17fl oz/2 cups just-boiled water into a heatproof bowl, sprinkle the gelatine over and leave to stand for 5 minutes. Gradually add the sugar, mixing well, then leave to cool.
Once cooled, strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean bowl. Stir in the lychee juice and lemon juice. Pour into a plastic container, cover and freeze for 4 hours until solid, stirring every 30 minutes for the first 2–3 hours to prevent any ice crystals forming. Alternatively, churn in an ice-cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Once solid but not hard, spoon into martini glasses or pretty glass bowls to serve. If not using immediately, the sorbet can be frozen for up to 1 month.
From left, Fiammetta, Nanny Mischa and Sforzino.
