The Sforzas’ relatively peaceful period of exile in Brussels and the South of France came to an abrupt end with the start of World War II. With Mussolini firmly allied to Hitler, and both Belgium and France on the brink of invasion, the family had to escape once again. The stability of their life in Brussels and the idyll of summers in the South of France, with those long, relaxed Provençal lunches, were unfortunately over.
The family drove as far as Normandy, where they joined forces with a group of Italian friends and some of Carlo’s political allies. Here, they lived for six or seven months in simple, rented accommodation, waiting anxiously and listening to the wireless for daily developments. By September 1940, it became all too obvious that the Germans were advancing fast, so the family hastened southwest by road to Bordeaux in a convoy of cars, frequently buzzed by enemy fighter planes. In Bordeaux, they went immediately to the British Consulate. Fortunately, the consul was a long-time admirer of Carlo’s, so they were warmly welcomed, given dinner – with plenty of red wine to fortify them – and promised a safe passage to England as soon as possible.
The only available boat was a Dutch cargo ship returning from South America, loaded with linseed. She had already attempted to dock at both Amsterdam and Rotterdam, only to find the Germans had destroyed both ports. The ship was now bound for Falmouth, and the captain told Carlo that he could take 60 passengers, including the Sforzas, but warned him that there would be no food on board. As he also told them that the crossing was going to take about four days, finding something to eat was vital. Fiammetta and her brother were sent out into the chaos of the panic-stricken city to buy whatever they could find with the few francs they had left. They returned with ten oranges, six bananas, four cans of sardines and three baguettes. My mother was never able to eat a banana again for the rest of her life.
The British sailors working in the port, anxious to destroy any evidence of their whereabouts and ensure that the family’s trail was well and truly cold, pushed the cars – loaded with the possessions they could not take on board – deep into the water. The family, standing on the quayside with just a few essential items, told each other they would rather lose everything than leave their precious possessions behind to be crudely picked over by the enemy.
The ship set sail, with its extra cargo of people, and travelled up through the estuary and across the Channel, the Captain dodging the enemy deftly. Most of her passengers were in the hold, hidden among the linseed sacks. The Sforzas’ travelling companions were a strange bunch: butlers, valets, nannies, priests and – by some odd chance – several Royal Lancers. Like the Sforzas, they had hung on until the very last minute before evacuating.
Valentine was given a basic cabin on board, but Carlo and the children made the best of it in the hold among the linseed sacks. My mother remembers being too worried and afraid to relax, and the mixture of engine fumes and linseed did nothing to help her lifelong propensity for seasickness. Four days later they docked in Cornwall, where the Women’s Voluntary Service met them in Falmouth harbour, giving each passenger a slip of paper, on which was an address of someone who would give them a hot meal and a bed for the night, without asking questions. Exhausted and shaken, every trace of her usual sparkle gone, 25-year-old Fiammetta appeared on the doorstep of a complete stranger and was given the most caring, unconditional welcome she had experienced in her life. She slept solidly for 38 hours in a spotlessly clean room, only woken by her hostess when it was time to board the blacked-out train to London. After a substantial breakfast of kippers, eggs and several cups of very strong tea, Fiammetta was driven to the railway station where she joined her family on the train headed for London.
Once in London, the family was hidden in the back bedroom of a house in Clapham for a few days. After dark, mysterious strangers would visit, whose job it was to secure their safe passage to the United States. The only contact they had with their host was the mysterious appearance of trays, bearing tea and a couple of thin, fish-paste sandwiches, which were left outside the door.
Very early, on an icy winter’s morning, the family set off by road for Liverpool, where they boarded the Duchess of Atoll, bound for Quebec. Their voyage across the Atlantic was slow and filled with almost unbearable anxiety due to the U-boats and planes patrolling the waters. They were thankful for the forced inactivity it offered, though, as the crossing allowed them to take advantage of some rest and regular small meals of simple food. When they docked in Canada, an official car met them. They loaded their few remaining possessions into it and headed for the border, ready to begin their new life in the United States of America.
Fiammetta, far left, in New York with friends from the Red Cross.
At the border, the family was suddenly and unexpectedly separated once again. This time it was Fiammetta’s Chinese birth certificate that was the problem. She was detained in Quebec while the authorities researched her background and, after a few days of waiting, she was informed that the American consul was ill in bed with measles. The vice consul, determined to perform his duties meticulously, was adamant that Fiammetta would remain in Canada “until the matter has been researched scrupulously and checked down to the very last detail”. No amount of pleading or reasoning would change his mind.
As soon as Carlo reached Washington, he contacted the White House. One phone call later, and miraculously the vice consul at the Canadian border disappeared and the Consul, mercifully free of measles, reappeared. He took Fiammetta and another girl, who had also been detained, out for a luxurious dinner of lobster tails and a slice of tarte au sucre, the famous sugar and maple syrup pie of Quebec. When they boarded the train for Washington, the two girls were given vast bouquets of flowers and a thousand apologies.
President Roosevelt, who had long since admired Carlo’s political views and had read many of his books, instructed his government to make sure the Sforzas reached their new home on Cape Cod safely. The family loved their comfortable house and the quaint seaside town with its clapboard houses and white-steepled church. Surrounded by the serenity of this peaceful place, with its long sandy beaches, they felt far away from the troubles in Europe and thankful for the extraordinary generosity of the Americans. The Sforzas felt safer than they had in a long time. Cape Cod was a haven, with a glorious abundance of seafood and delicious, creamy, comforting chowders that assuaged their longing for the familiar things of home.
Carlo, feeling unable to accept this gift from the American government without giving something in return, spent a great deal of his time either writing, or touring various universities as a guest lecturer, most often to Columbia. Valentine, exhausted by all the near-misses and the long, cold fear she had suffered over the past few years, spent her time reading and resting when she was not travelling with her husband. She became a good friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom she shared many of the same political views regarding women and their rights, and she often stayed in Washington, taking tea and cakes with the First Lady and her entourage.
Fiammetta recovered quite quickly from her ordeal and felt the need to explore the United States. She moved to New York, taught herself to cook by listening to the “Mystery Chef” on the radio, trained as a Red Cross nurse and took a job at the New York Metropolitan Opera, teaching opera singers how to pronounce Italian correctly. She also volunteered to feed soldiers returning from the war, those who could not use their hands or were blinded. She told me that this was a job that required a very strong stomach and endless patience, but that it kept her in touch with what was going on in Europe – the wounded told her their stories as she spooned soup into their mouths.
New York was the centre of activity in the USA during World War II. When Hitler came to power in Germany, American Nazis were to be seen goose-stepping in Yorkville on the Upper East Side, while recently arrived Jewish immigrants found much-needed refuge on the Upper West Side. Once America joined the fight, enlisted men heading for Europe or the Pacific streamed through Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station, and soldiers crowded into Times Square to enjoy their precious free time. The Brooklyn Navy Yard refitted many ships, some of which were attacked by German U-boats as the convoys left New York Harbour. Silhouetted against the skyline, they were easy pickings and, after weeks of fatalities – with debris and bodies being regularly washed up on Long Island’s beaches – the city finally imposed a stringent dimming of the lights.
Despite the war, the stifling heat in summer, the freezing winters, the fact that Americans apparently ate persimmons with mayonnaise, and the thousands of cockroaches in her apartment, Fiammetta genuinely loved New York. She made many dear friends there, including Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, and his wife Iphigene, who visited my parents in Rome several times over a period of many years. (Mrs. Sulzberger always stayed at the incredibly luxurious Hotel Hassler Villa Medici on Trinità dei Monti. I remember when I was a gauche, pimply teenager, having dinner in its dining room, as a guest of the wonderfully gracious Signora Sulzberger, feeling amazed by the heart-stopping views over the Spanish Steps and the rooftops of Rome. I watched shyly as the handsome waiters filleted our sea bass for us at the table, and flambéed a steak with theatrical panache.)
Some of the first recipes my mother taught me to make were from her battered collection of American cookbooks that she brought home from the USA. It was a magical time, alone with her in the kitchen of our apartment in Rome, learning about creaming butter and sugar with the back of a wooden spoon, or how to measure butter by adding it to cold water in a measuring jug and watching the water level rise. My favourite of my mother’s American books was Learn to Bake! You’ll Love it! Even now I am comfortable using cup measurements, as a result of my being introduced to American cookbooks so early on.
Childhood Sunday afternoon cooking sessions with my mother involved much baking – especially pies, cookies and cakes – peppered by stories of her wartime experiences, especially how hard it had been to get the Italian ingredients she craved to make the kind of food she needed for comfort and reassurance. I understood exactly how she felt – when I first moved to London in the mid-1970s, it was much harder than it is today to find the Italian ingredients I wanted. A simple risotto, sprinkled with fresh Parmesan, was desperately longed for, and often enough to stop the pangs of homesickness that so often threatened to engulf me completely.
Although my mother could seldom afford to eat out in New York, when she lived there in the 1940s, there were always the Americanized versions of Italian dishes that were served in the many Italian restaurants, and she would often shop in Little Italy, hunting out ingredients such as olive oil, pasta wrapped in blue paper or canned Italian tomatoes, which were even more of a rarity during the war. Rather incongruously, she maintained a great fondness for ice-cream sodas and the delights of the soda fountain, and introduced me proudly, many years later, to the joys of a Brown Cow. I cannot say I shared my mother’s enthusiasm, and found the combination of Coca-Cola and vanilla ice cream to be absolutely disgusting. But then, unlike her, I had never had one in New York in the 1940s.
All the time they were in exile in the USA, the Sforza family kept careful track of what was happening at home in Italy, through letters from their family and friends, as well as snippets of unofficial news through the White House and the Press. Carlo always vowed he would return home the moment Italy surrendered to the Allied forces and, straight after the Armistice, he took one of the first post-war transatlantic passenger flights back. He took Sforzino with him while Valentine and Fiammetta stayed behind, waiting until a safe passage could be arranged on a ship.
Fiammetta in New York.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus cooling and 15 minutes standing
Cooking time: 1 hour 10 minutes
2 tbsp sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing
3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 carrots, sliced
4 celery sticks, sliced
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm/½in cubes
150g/5½oz/scant 1 cup frozen peas
1 small onion, roughly chopped
15g/½oz unsalted butter
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tbsp plain white flour
250ml/9fl oz/1 cup good-quality flavoursome chicken stock
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp each chopped sage and thyme leaves
Pastry:
375g/13oz/3 cups plain white flour, plus extra for dusting
½ tsp sea salt
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
225g/8oz unsalted butter, frozen and cut into 1cm/½in cubes
milk, for brushing
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4. Lightly grease a 23cm/9in round ovenproof dish. To make the pastry, sift the flour, salt and spices into a large mixing bowl, then cut the butter into the flour with a knife until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Gradually add 3–5 tablespoons water, mixing with a fork and then your hands until it forms a ball of dough. Halve the dough and roll each piece out on a lightly floured work surface to 1cm/½in thick. Line the base and sides of the dish with one half of the pastry. Put the other sheet of pastry on a board lined with baking paper. Chill while you make the filling.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the chicken and sear until browned on both sides. Remove from the pan, then cut into chunks and put it in a mixing bowl. Leave to one side. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the carrots, celery, potatoes, peas and half the onion to the pan and cook until just softened, then add to the bowl with the chicken.
Melt the butter in the same pan over a medium heat. Add the remaining onion and the garlic and cook for 5–8 minutes, or until the onion begins to brown. Stir in the flour, then add the chicken stock, salt, pepper and herbs and cook, stirring until the mixture has thickened. Pour it over the chicken and vegetables, then leave to cool completely.
When cold, pour the mixture into the pastry-lined dish. Top with the remaining pastry and pinch the edges together to seal, then brush with milk and cut a few slits in the top. Bake for 30–40 minutes, until the pastry is golden. Leave to stand for 5 minutes before serving.
This is the way my mother would make chowder for us when there were plenty of clams to use up. Alternatively, she would use mussels, which also worked really well. This soup is simple, but deliciously comforting on a cold winter’s evening, and you can jazz it up, as my mum used to do, by adding a little saffron or other spices to the mix.
Serves 4–6
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 20 minutes
3kg/6lb 8oz clams
fish stock or bottled clam juice, as needed
115g/4oz streaky bacon
2 onions, chopped
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
500ml/17fl oz/2 cups double cream
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
chopped chives, to serve
Scrub the clams thoroughly with a stiff brush under cold running water to remove all traces of grit. Rinse and discard any with broken shells or that do not close as soon as they are tapped.
Put the clams in a large saucepan (or use 2 saucepans if necessary) with a splash of water over a medium heat, cover with a tight-fitting lid and steam for 8 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until the shells open. Discard any that remain closed. Drain the clams, reserving any liquid.
Cool the clams slightly, then remove all the meat from the shells and leave to one side. Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve into a heatproof jug, making it up to 600ml/21fl oz/scant 2½ cups with fish stock or bottled clam juice and leave to one side.
Heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the bacon until crisp, then drain on kitchen paper and leave to one side. Add the onions to the fat in the pan and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes until soft and translucent.
Transfer the onions to a large saucepan, stir in the clam cooking liquid and add the potatoes. Bring to the boil, then boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to low, then cook for 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and falling apart. Stir in the cream and simmer for a further 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, chop the bacon, then add the clams and half the bacon to the chowder and cook for 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated through. Season with salt and pepper, then serve sprinkled with the remaining bacon and chives.
I have adapted this from one of my mother’s recipes, which originated from her much-used copy of The Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook, published by the Culinary Arts Press in 1936. My mother, who hated waste, would make it using apples that had gone a bit old and soft, carefully cutting out any brown bits.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes
55g/2oz unsalted butter
4 apples, peeled, cored and finely sliced
6 slices of brown bread, roughly crumbled
6 tbsp soft brown sugar
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
tsp freshly grated nutmeg
vanilla ice cream, to serve
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4 and grease the base of a deep ovenproof dish with a third of the butter. Arrange a third of the apples in an even layer on the base of the dish, then top with a layer of breadcrumbs and half the sugar. Sprinkle lightly with about half the cinnamon and nutmeg.
Add another layer of apples, the remaining breadcrumbs, half the remaining sugar and spices. Dot with half the remaining butter and add the rest of the apples.
Cover with the remaining sugar, then sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon and nutmeg. Dot with the rest of the butter, then spoon over 6 tablespoons hot water.
Cover the dish loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Preheat the grill to medium-high. Remove the foil and grill for 5 minutes until browned. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
My mother’s favourite recipe book was The Mystery Chef’s Own Cook Book written by John MacPherson, the famous radio cook she used to listen to when she lived in New York. This is my own adaptation of a family favourite from that marvellously quirky book.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 40 minutes, plus cooling
Cooking time: 15 minutes
450g/1lb black cherries
5 tbsp caster sugar
1½ tbsp cornflour
240ml/8fl oz/scant 1 cup whipping cream
Pastry:
140g/5oz chilled unsalted butter, cubed, plus extra for greasing
250g/9oz/2 cups plain white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp granulated sugar
tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas 7. Grease a deep 20cm/8in round tart tin with butter. To make the pastry, sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl, then stir in the sugar and salt. Add the butter and rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in 1 tablespoon cold water and gently knead together to form a ball of dough, adding more water if necessary. Do not over-knead the pastry or it will become heavy.
Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to form a circle 5cm/2in larger than the tart tin and use to line the base and sides of the prepared tin. Fold any extra pastry back over the edge and crimp it all the way round with your fingers and thumb to make a thick border. Prick the base and side of the pastry with a fork. Line with greaseproof paper and fill with rice or baking beans. Bake for 15 minutes until golden, then remove the paper and beans. Return the pastry case to the oven for a further 10 minutes until cooked. Leave to cool.
Meanwhile, put the cherries, caster sugar and 150ml/5fl oz/scant cup water in a saucepan and cook until soft. Strain the cherries, reserving the juice, then leave to cool. Once cooled, remove all the cherry stones.
Mix the cornflour with 3 tablespoons cold water in a small bowl until smooth, then stir it into the reserved cherry juice. Pour into a saucepan and simmer gently until thickened to a syrup, then add the stoned cherries and mix together. Leave to cool completely.
Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Pile the cream into the cooled pastry case and top with the cherries and syrup before serving.
From left, pictured front, Sforzino and Fiammetta with two of their Sforza uncles.