On 10 June 1924, Giacomo Matteotti, one of the bravest Italians who ever dared to speak out against Mussolini, simply disappeared. Two months later his body was found just outside Rome. A carpenter’s file had been driven into his chest. Matteotti had been the head of the Italian Socialist Party and, like my Nonno, had not been afraid to speak his mind. For this, he had paid with his life.
Real, cold terror now gripped the Sforza family, who were still living in Via Linneo. My Nonno, now aged 56, was repeatedly attacked, before being dumped on the doorstep of his home, bloodied and bruised. Over and over again, the Blackshirts forced their way into the house, smashing the Sforzas’ precious possessions indiscriminately. Then, in October 1926, their much-loved family home on the Tuscan coast was torched and burned to the ground.
It was clear that the family had to leave Italy for their own safety. Carlo was determined to continue the fight against Fascism from abroad by writing and lecturing. In March 1927, after much careful planning – and after many influential friends had been contacted and persuaded to help – Carlo set sail for Peking on the pretext of having been commissioned by the Manchester Guardian and the Journal des Débats to write various articles. Few people knew he was actually leaving for good, and the Fascist authorities, though suspicious, were eventually persuaded that he would return. Carlo left his wife and children behind, with Nanny Mischa and the rest of the servants, under terrifying conditions of increasing harassment and oppression.
Once Valentine knew that Carlo was safe, she made plans for her own escape. She enlisted the assistance of her sister Germaine, who was living in Brussels with their father. Knowing that her sister’s mail was opened and read by the Blackshirts, Germaine helped to prepare the ground for the family’s escape, sending a stream of increasingly anguished letters to Valentine, begging her to come to Brussels at once to see their dying father. In fact, although their father was very ill, his condition was not life-threatening, but the ruse worked: Valentine was able to escape.
Once the Fascist authorities had checked that Count Gaston Charles Errembault de Dudzeele was indeed Valentine’s father, and that he appeared to be on his deathbed, Valentine was allowed to leave, but on the condition that she left her children behind. This was torment for her. Torn between the knowledge that this was the only way to get out – and get her children out after her – and the terrible wrench of leaving her children behind, she was paralysed. Eventually, it was Mischa who persuaded her to go – although she too was aware of the danger she and the children were facing. She was adamant that she would get them to Belgium safely.
Before leaving Italy, Valentine made arrangements with various well-connected friends who could help Nanny Mischa and the children to leave safely. She reassured Fiammetta and Sforzino, promising that they would all be together in Belgium soon, and urged them to be courageous and strong. As Valentine boarded a train at Rome’s Stazione Termini, the children, comforted by Nanny Mischa, promised they would be brave for the sake of their mother.
Valentine’s train journey across France went smoothly enough, and soon she was back in her own country, reunited with her sister Germaine and her father in Brussels. The following month the little party of three – my mother, uncle and Nanny Mischa – set off on the first leg of their journey from Rome. At first they did not encounter any problems, but they soon ran into difficulties on the French border at Modane. The children and their nanny were dragged roughly off the train and were ordered to stand on the platform in the dark, while the Fascist border officials interrogated them. Nanny Mischa took control of the situation. While the children shrank back against the skirts of her uniform, scared but nonetheless determined to keep their promise to their mother to be brave, the Blackshirts circled the little group, stamping their boots, their taunts and insults growing more ominous by the minute. Mischa drew herself up to her full height. “Leave us alone!” she said. “These children are in my care!”
Her tone had the desired effect. The guards drew aside to confer, then – although they held on to Mischa for questioning – they let the children board the train. It had been imperative that they caught it: on it, unbeknown to the Blackshirts, were a handful of people waiting to help the children. Once on board, they were quickly hidden from view as the train began to pull out of the station. My mother remembered spending the rest of the journey rolled up in a stranger’s coat, lying on a hard coat-rack and barely daring to breathe. All across France, an unmarked car followed the train, its headlights visible from the carriage windows.
Some of my Belgian cousins!
At last, the long and terrible journey was over. As the train pulled into Brussels Central, the sight of their mother standing on the platform was almost too much for the exhausted children to bear. Overwhelmed with relief, Valentine held them tight. They were safe, and their 17 year exile had begun.
Nanny Mischa joined them shortly after, having withstood her interrogation stoically, and the family settled into Valentine’s father’s house at no. 4, Rue de la Grosse Tour. It was a few months before Carlo could join them: he needed to keep well away from the tentacles of Mussolini’s regime, so stayed a few months longer in China, waiting for the dust to settle. When the family were together once more, they divided their time between Brussels and their home in the South of France called Le Grand Pin. This would be the case for the next 10 years, until World War II made it impossible.
Carlo, unemployed apart from writing his many books and journals about European politics, needed to earn a living, so spent each academic year away from Valentine and the children on various lecture tours, including several to the USA. Each summer, when he was back for the holiday months, Le Grand Pin became a place where freethinking intellectuals gathered to enjoy long discussions over lunch on the terrace and swims in the little private cove at the foot of the cliffs. My mother remembered meeting Thomas Mann, among the crowd of bohemian artists, writers in crisis and various hangers-on that filled the house to overflowing.
Through these sundrenched summer months, Fiammetta always sensed an undercurrent of fear. The threat of German invasion hung over the party, even while they enjoyed long, lazy Provençal lunches, the table covered in brightly painted bowls of ratatouille, courgette farcis, la Bouillabaisse with its little bowls of rouille (see page 107), and dense, green tourte de blettes (Swiss chard, raisin and pine nut tart).
Life in Brussels was more sedate. For my mother, it was punctuated by school, homework and the simple comforts and daily customs of family life. Mischa was a constant, unwavering presence, imposing routine, regular meals, spotlessly clean hands and good manners. They all tried very hard to live as normal a life as possible, even in the shadow of the increasingly militant Fascists, and this was helped by the steady ritual of regular meals at the carefully laid table, adding a reliable rhythm to each day.
My mother would often tell me about the food she discovered and came to enjoy during those years in Belgium, especially the huge mounds of tiny boiled brown shrimps that she would watch the market traders shell, their hands flying so fast in the cold air they were almost a blur, before wrapping them expertly in brown paper. Many years later, when my mother lived with us in Norfolk, England, and my boys were just babies, I would buy shrimps, knowing how much she loved them. Inevitably, though, my gesture would provoke such an outpouring of memories for her that it almost made me regret my purchase. From my mother, I learned early and hard about the link that exists between food and buried memories: she showed me how the taste of a particular food can transport you, instantly, to another place and time.
Knowing all I know now, I think this period in Belgium, punctuated by the family’s holidays in Provence, gave them all some much-needed space to recover from the horrors they had left behind when they closed the front door of their home in Via Linneo for the last time. Mischa remained with the children, even after they were too old for a nanny, continuing to offer much-needed stability, and Valentine took much solace in the companionship of her sister.
Carlo travelled extensively. There is a photograph somewhere of him sitting on a beach in Argentina with Eva Perón, and there was always gossip of him being seen with other women. The rumours of his many alleged indiscretions filtered through to Valentine, but she never stopped loving and supporting him. As she said to my mother: “On n’aime pas si l’on n’aime pour toujours.” (You must never love him, if not forever).
Many years later, when I was a little girl eager to absorb my mother’s foodie enthusiasm, we would spend rainy winter afternoons in her kitchen making mountains of golden galettes, using my Nonna’s heavy waffle iron over the gas stove. My mother would drizzle the thin batter over the hot metal before clamping the iron shut, counting to sixty, then heaving it over onto the other side with two hands to repeat the whole process. Another minute, and the iron would be opened to reveal a wafer-thin galette. The three of us – my mother, my Nonna and I – would then dip them into bowls of hot chocolate.
My Nonna, with her great love of all things sweet and sticky, also very much enjoyed Pâté de Coing (Quince Cheese, see page 111), a passion that lasted well into her later years. I can remember her offering me those dark amber-coloured cubes, lightly dusted in the thinnest veil of icing sugar, as a special autumn treat, when quinces were in season. I have inherited her love of quinces and can never prepare them, or smell their delectable scent, without thinking of her.
Nonno Carlo and Great Aunt Lili.
Bouillabaisse is one of the great dishes of French Provençal cuisine and one that my grandparents often served to guests at their home, Le Grand Pin, in the south of France. When I recently talked about this recipe with my family and the memories which it inevitably brings out in us, there was much discussion around our table as to whether or not a traditional bouillabaisse should be served with rouille, or whether this garlicky sauce is only ever served with soupe au poissons. As far as I know, rouille can be served with both, so I have included it here because I know how much my mother would love to spread it onto thin slices of crisp baguette. According to my mother, bouillabaisse should ideally also include rascasse, an ugly, bony rock fish found only in the Mediterranean, but feel free to make it with any combination of fish and seafood available to you – the selection needs to be as varied as possible.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
2.7kg/6lb mixed fish and shellfish, such as halibut, red mullet, prawns, mussels and clams, cleaned, prepared and filleted
1 large French baguette, sliced
1 tbsp roughly chopped parsley leaves
Fish broth:
4 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
about 1.1kg/2lb 7oz fish heads and bones
450g/1lb ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and chopped, or 1 tsp dried fennel seeds
8cm/3¼in strip of orange rind, white pith removed
8 parsley sprigs
2 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
a pinch of saffron threads
2 tsp sea salt
6–8 black peppercorns
400ml/4fl oz/scant 1
cups white wine
Rouille:
1 potato, unpeeled and left whole
1 red pepper
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
80ml/2½fl oz/
cup olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
First, make the broth. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion, celery and garlic and fry gently until the onions are soft and translucent.
Stir in the remaining broth ingredients, then bring to the boil and boil briefly to cook off the alcohol in the wine. Pour in 400ml/14fl oz/scant 1 cups water or enough to cover all the broth ingredients in the pan. Return to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30–40 minutes. Strain through a sieve into a heatproof jug, discarding the solids, and add a little more salt and pepper, if you like. If not using immediately, leave to cool, then chill, covered, for up to 2 days.
To make the rouille, preheat the grill to high. Put the potato in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Boil for 15 minutes, or until tender, then drain. Meanwhile, grill the red pepper for 10 minutes, turning frequently, until charred all over. Put in a plastic food bag, seal and leave for 5 minutes. When cool, peel away the blackened skin.
Cut the grilled pepper in half and remove the seeds. Put the pepper, potato, garlic and chilli in a blender or food processor with a little of the broth and season with salt and pepper. With the machine running, gradually pour in the oil, adding a little more of the broth if needed, until the mixture is thick but spreadable. Add a little more salt and pepper, if you like, then transfer to a small jug or bowl and leave to one side.
Scrub the mussels and clams thoroughly with a stiff brush under cold running water to remove all traces of grit, then remove any barnacles or other debris attached to the shells and pull off and discard the “beard” from the mussels. Rinse the shellfish again and discard any with broken shells or that do not close as soon as they are tapped.
Put the broth in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over a medium heat. Add the fish and shellfish in batches, starting with the firmest fish first, including the halibut and red mullet, and ending with the most delicate shellfish, such as the prawns, mussels and clams. Simmer until all the seafood is cooked and any shells have opened, about 8–10 minutes. Discard any shells that remain closed.
Meanwhile, preheat the grill to medium. Grill the slices of baguette until golden and toasted. To serve, put 2–3 slices of toasted baguette in the bottom of each of six bowls. Spoon the fish and seafood into the bowls, then ladle over the broth. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with the rouille for adding at the table.
This was one of my mother’s favourite dishes, and I can see why – the eggs and little brown shrimps come together so perfectly in this lovely recipe of hers, which is reminiscent of her time in Belgium. You can, of course, make four separate two-egg omelettes instead of one large eight-egg omelette as below.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
8 large eggs
a splash of milk
45g/1½oz unsalted butter
150g/5½oz cooked and peeled brown shrimps
2 tbsp chopped chives
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
chicory salad, to serve
Beat the eggs in a large bowl until only just combined, then stir in a pinch of salt, pepper and a splash of milk.
Melt the butter in a large, non-stick omelette pan or frying pan over a medium heat. As soon as the butter has melted and stopped sizzling, but is not browned, pour in the egg mixture and tilt the pan so it covers the base. Cook the omelette until the egg is mostly set on the bottom but is still runny on top, especially in the centre.
Scatter the shrimps and chives over the top, then flip the omelette in half to encase them. Cook for a further 2 minutes to just heat through, moving the pan around to prevent anything from catching or burning. Serve the omelette with a chicory salad.
Pâté de coing (la cotognata in Italian) is a lovely, old-fashioned French delicacy made by boiling quinces, the very last of the autumn fruits, and then leaving them to set into a sticky, sweet, thick jelly. In France (and Italy), it is one of the great traditional sweetmeats of the autumn. My Nonna always loved it: she also used ripe quinces to scent her linen cupboard and often had a bowl of the fragrant fruit sitting on a table to fill the house with their delicate perfume.
Makes 500g/1lb 2oz
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
500g/1lb 2oz quinces, peeled, cored and sliced
350g/12oz/1½ cups caster sugar
juice of 1 lemon
icing sugar or granulated sugar, for dusting
Put the quinces, caster sugar and lemon juice in a stainless steel preserving pan or large, heavy-based saucepan with 3 tablespoons water and bring to a gentle simmer, then cook for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fruit have broken down into a thick, smooth purée. If necessary, blitz the mixture briefly with a hand-held blender to remove any remaining lumps.
To test the mixture, drop a teaspoonful onto a cold saucer and then tip the saucer. If the mixture remains solid, the quince cheese is ready. If not, continue to simmer the mixture for an extra 5 minutes and test as before.
Pour the mixture into a shallow, non-stick baking tray lined with baking paper and leave to cool and set. Once solid and cold, cut into small squares and dust with icing sugar to serve. If not serving immediately, layer the quince cheese in an airtight container, interleaved with baking paper, and store in a cool place for up to 1 week.
My mother loved baking biscuits, and my brothers and I grew up loving these very special, lightly spiced teatime treats, so lovingly made for us to enjoy with a cup of tea or to dunk shamelessly into bowls of decadently rich hot chocolate. Although traditionally these biscuits are sandwiched together with jam and then lightly iced, I must say I have always preferred eating them plain.
Makes about 24 plain or 10 filled biscuits
Preparation time: 15–25 minutes, plus 30 minutes chilling and 10 minutes cooling
Cooking time: 10–15 minutes
375g/13oz/scant 2 cups soft light brown sugar
250g/9oz unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
2½ tsp mixed spice
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
400g/14oz/scant 3¼ cups plain white flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp strawberry jam (optional)
hot chocolate, to serve (optional)
Icing (optional):
150g/5½oz/scant 1¼ cups icing sugar
1 tbsp milk
5g/
oz unsalted butter, melted
Put the brown sugar, butter and egg in a food processor and process until well combined. Add the mixed spice, cinnamon, flour and baking powder and pulse until the mixture combines to form a dough. Divide the dough in half, then shape into 2 × 10cm/4in diameter logs. Wrap each log separately in cling film and chill for 30 minutes or until firm.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4 and line 2 large baking sheets with greaseproof paper. Roll out each piece of dough between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper to 5mm/¼in thick, then stamp out rounds using a 6cm/2½in cookie cutter if making plain biscuits, or a 4cm/1½in cookie cutter if making filled biscuits, re-rolling the trimmings as necessary.
Put the biscuits on the prepared baking sheets and bake for 10–15 minutes, or until golden. Leave to cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the icing, if using. Sift the icing sugar into a small bowl, then add the milk and butter. Beat vigorously until the mixture is well combined and spreadable. If it is too stiff, add a little more milk. Spread half the cooled biscuits with the jam, if using, then sandwich together with the remaining biscuits. Spread the icing over the top and leave to set slightly for a few minutes. Alternatively, serve the biscuits plain with a cup of rich hot chocolate.
The swimming pool at the house in Cape Cod, where the Sforzas stayed during the war.
