Back in Rome, the family lived in Via Linneo, not far from the zoo and the Borghese Gardens. It was a newly built, charming house with a lovely garden. My mother, now aged nine, attended the nearby convent school, but soon even her day-to-day education seemed to get drawn into the political scene. But for both Fiammetta and Sforzino, the solid and unchanging presence of Nanny Mischa, waiting for them at home, was a huge comfort.
The situation at school was especially hard for Fiammetta because she was unpopular with the nuns, who supported Mussolini and knew all about Carlo’s feelings concerning the dictator. My mother was forever being punished for the tiniest of misdemeanours with painful, humiliating rituals, such as kneeling for several hours in front of the statue of St. Anthony on a bed of rock salt. She was never able to bear the thought of that particular saint after that, and she never forgot the pain from her cut knees as the salt seeped into her wounds.
My favourite story from my mother’s school days involved the Mother Superior and a large tureen of bean soup. One day, my mother was given the job of dishing out the soup to the rest of her table. She lifted the lid from the tureen and dipped in the ladle. As she did so, she glanced down at the soup. To her disgust, the beans were moving – they had small maggots wriggling out of them. Fiammetta put down the ladle, replaced the lid on the tureen and waited for Mother Superior to come to the table. In a moment she was by her side, demanding to know why my mother was not carrying out her duty. Fiammetta explained that she had seen maggots in the soup, but Mother Superior refused to believe her, accused her of lying and ordered her to serve the soup.
With that, Fiammetta lifted up the heavy tureen and tipped the soup over the nun’s head, making sure she was well-covered in the maggoty beans. This incident resulted in several more agonizing hours spent on her knees in front of St. Anthony before going home to the gentle ministrations of Mischa and her mother, and a supper of her favourite Bucatini all’Amatriciana (Spicy Tomato & Pancetta Pasta, see page 95) and a simple but comforting Crostata di Marmellata (Jam Tart, see page 99), made with her favourite home-made Fig Jam (see page 99).
The Sforza children were repeatedly harassed on their way to school. As Carlo’s children, they were also under suspicion and Blackshirt soldiers rifled through their satchels almost on a daily basis. Sforzino would sometimes fight back by playing tricks on the soldiers, planting frogs in his satchel that would obligingly jump out and startle the guards.
At home, things were getting more difficult by the day. The family’s mail was censored and their phone was tapped. Whenever Valentine received a call in a foreign language, the operator would come on the line and tell her to stop speaking until they found the right interpreter to listen in; sometimes my grandmother would pick up the telephone to be greeted by a string of dreadful obscenities. Her faithful Hungarian housemaid, Fanny, was instructed to hand over the contents of the wastepaper baskets each day to the authorities for examination. She also had to keep careful notes on all household conversations, especially those around the dining table, and report back daily to the guards on duty at their gates. Every time Carlo went for a walk, there would be a guard walking behind him. Occasionally, my grandfather would tease him: in hot weather, he would airily hand the guard his coat, remarking: “At least you can make yourself useful.”
In the midst of all this, the Sforza parents appeared calm and in control. Nothing seemed to shake their resolve to fight the oppression with dignity. In the evenings, the family would gather for supper – simple meals of soup, followed by grilled fish or meat. None of them had much appetite for anything elaborate or festive during those dark days. If Carlo and Valentine were out for dinner, the children would eat their supper in the nursery with Mischa. My mother hated spinach, which her brother loved, and if it was served they would deftly swap plates when Mischa’s back was turned.
Carlo and Valentine wrapped the family in a cocoon of love. Even when things were at their most difficult for him, Carlo still found time to have a mimosa tree planted below Valentine’s bedroom balcony, like the one she had so loved in Peking. My grandmother also managed to rise above the tension and maintain a serene home: one afternoon my mother remembered returning to find the delicious scent of freesias together with the sound of her mother’s piano-playing wafting through the house. Carlo had asked the gardener to plant a whole bed of the flowers under the sitting room windows, just because Valentine loved them.
Top, Nonno Carlo and Nanny Mischa with Fiammetta on the beach. Above, Sforzino and Fiammetta in the garden.
At some point, however, it became impossible to maintain a calm and happy home. One night, after another of Carlo’s inflammatory speeches in the Senate, there was an especially rowdy and vicious attack on the family. A gang of young Fascists, armed with buckets of muck, forced their way into the house. They began to throw great handfuls of it at the painting of Carlo, in full diplomatic uniform, which hung in the hallway. Valentine, her long hair hanging down her back, dressed only in her nightdress, stood on the stairs and shouted at them, “What kind of men are you? I am alone in the house with my children!”
Fiammetta tried to remain strong but a few days later, unable to bear school a moment longer, she ran away. She had been asked to carry the Fascist Flag in the Madonna Procession and, when it was handed to her, she had stamped and spat on it. Hours of brutal punishment followed and when she was finally released, she took off. A few days later, her knees still sore from her punishment, a ball was thrown over the school wall accidentally during a tennis game. Fiammetta climbed over to fetch it and headed straight home, never to return.
I have added my family’s time-honoured and dearly loved recipe for Pasta e Fagioli (Bean & Pasta Soup, see page 96) because, despite the dreadful experience that my mother suffered with that tureen of soup at the hands of the Mother Superior when she was at school, this dish has always been a mainstay of my family’s meals, served hot in winter and lightly chilled in summer. It is far too comforting, delicious and important to leave out. My mother, in recounting the story of the school soup, always remarked that nuns in Italy have a reputation for enjoying their food and doubtless would have eaten something much more palatable in their own private dining room.
This dish comes from the small town of Amatrice in Lazio and was a favourite Sforza family meal when they lived in Rome. Bucatini are fat, hollow spaghetti, perfect for absorbing robust sauces, but you can also use ordinary spaghetti if you prefer. In most tomato-based sauces, Italians like to use either garlic or onion; it is rare to find both in the same dish. I have taken part in many discussions about which is the best type of bacon to use in this dish – many favour pancetta, which is made from the belly, while others prefer the cured and salted guanciale, the cheek of the pig. While you could use Parmesan, the cheese of choice would be the saltier and more peppery Pecorino Romano.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
300g/10½oz thickly cut pancetta or guanciale, cubed
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
½–2 dried red chillies, according to taste, deseeded and finely chopped
5 tbsp dry white wine
450g/1lb tinned plum tomatoes, chopped
400g/14oz dried bucatini
sea salt
75g/2½oz Pecorino Romano, freshly grated, to serve
Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over a medium-high heat. Add the pancetta and fry until the fat is transparent and running freely. Add the onion, garlic and chilli, then reduce the heat and fry gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the onion is soft and translucent.
Add the wine and allow to bubble for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes, stirring frequently until the sauce is thick and glossy. Season lightly with salt.
Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil, add the pasta and cook according to the packet instructions until al dente. Drain and return the pasta to the pan, then pour in the sauce and mix together well. Serve with grated Pecorino for adding at the table.
This has become one of my family’s most dearly loved recipes, despite my mother’s dreadful experience at school! If you use fresh beans in their pods, they will need to be shelled, soaked and treated like dried beans, though cooked for a little less time, or you can use tinned beans. Beppino always added a special wild herb he picked for the soup, called puerin in the local dialect, but I think it was probably nepitella, known as “lesser calamint” in English.
Serves 4
Preparation time: about 15 minutes, plus at least 8 hours soaking
Cooking time: 2–2½hours
300g/10½oz/1½ cups dried beans, preferably borlotti, soaked in cold water for at least 8 hours
2 tbsp olive oil
75g/2½oz thickly sliced pancetta or prosciutto, cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stick, chopped
1.4l/48fl oz/5½ cups strong meat stock
150g/5½oz/scant 
cup dried soup pasta
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
good-quality extra virgin olive oil and freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to serve
Bring a covered saucepan of unsalted water to the boil. Drain and rinse the beans, add them to the pan and boil hard for 10 minutes, then drain and rinse again. Return the beans to the pan, cover with fresh unsalted water and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 45–60 minutes until tender; drain.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the pancetta, onion, carrot and celery and fry for 5–10 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Add the beans and stir well.
Pour in the stock and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 45–50 minutes, or until the beans are almost falling apart. Add the pasta and cook for a further 10 minutes, or until tender.
Season with salt and pepper and serve warm with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and grated Parmesan for adding at the table.
Serves 8
Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus making the jam and 30 minutes chilling
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Pastry:
1 egg, plus 2 egg yolks, beaten
125g/4½oz/heaped ½ cup caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
300g/10½oz/heaped 2
cups plain white flour, sifted, plus extra as needed and for dusting
125g/4½oz unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk, for brushing
Fig jam (makes 2 × 450g/1lb jars):
900g/2lb black or green figs, rinsed and quartered
350g/12oz/scant 1 cups preserving or granulated sugar
juice and finely grated zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
To make the jam, put all the ingredients in a stainless steel preserving pan or large, heavy-based saucepan and cook gently for 1–1½ hours, stirring occasionally. To test if the jam is set, drop a teaspoonful onto a cold saucer and cool slightly, then push with your fingertip – the surface should wrinkle and the mixture remain firm. Remove from the heat and transfer the jam to hot, dry sterilized jars (see Cook’s Note, page 40). Seal immediately and leave to cool. Store in a cool, dark place until required.
To make the pastry, beat together the egg, egg yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, then gradually mix in the remaining pastry ingredients, except for the milk. Using wet hands, quickly combine to form a soft dough, sprinkling with a little more flour if the dough is too sticky. Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4. Grease a 23cm/9in shallow tart tin with butter, then lightly dust with flour. Roll out three-quarters of the pastry into a round a little larger than the tart tin, then use it to line the tin. Press it evenly into the tin, making sure it comes up to the brim. Roll out the remaining pastry, then cut into thin strips to make a lattice.
Spoon enough of the fig jam into the pastry case to fill it almost to the top, then spread it out with the back of a spoon. Lay the pastry strips on top to create a lattice, then brush the pastry with a little milk. Bake in the centre of the oven for 40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown. Leave to cool slightly in the tin, then remove and sprinkle with a little sugar. Serve warm or cold.
Top, Le Grand Pin, the family retreat in the South of France. Above, Fiammetta in contemplative mood.
