Frankie Dettori’s Italian Family Cookbook. Frankie Dettori

      Marco

      “The greatest culinary influence in my life came from having an Italian mother who was a natural-born cook. Her family lived just outside Genoa where I used to spend my summer holidays as a little boy. My earliest food memories are of my mother picking me up from the school gates at midday to go home for lunch. I must have been about five years old. It was only ever the two of us and I’m not sure why my elder brother didn’t join us and instead stayed on for school dinners. Maybe she still regarded me as ‘the baby’ – or perhaps she had already spotted my interest in food. When we ate we’d talk and giggle our way through lunch. I think the reason this had such a lasting impression on me is that those simple meals were always filled with happiness.

      Mum cooked simple food intelligently and with great deal of attention to detail. She always used seasonal produce. In winter she’d make hearty soups with root vegetables, pulses and a little rice or pasta with a sprinkling of Parmigiano. In summer we’d have delicate broths studded with podded peas and lots fresh, soft herbs or perhaps a vegetable rice salad or simple spaghetti ‘al burro’ (which remains to this day my favourite pasta). She steered clear of fussy food and heavy sauces. Sometimes lunch would be just a very ripe tomato with a little salt, olive oil and, perhaps, some bread or a piece of cheese. But even a simple snack like this was made with love and a great deal of care and thus still lingers in my memory. Her food philosophy was to buy the best quality that you can afford and to let the flavours speak for themselves.

      I believe my mother’s inherent understanding and appreciation of food is a major component in the DNA of most, if not all Italian women. They seem to posses an uncanny knowledge and love for cooking and its ability to nurture. Italians always adhere to the principle that a great meal is not about expensive ingredients. On the contrary, some of the best food in Italy stems from ‘la cucina povera’, ‘the kitchen of the poor’, which understands the importance of allowing Mother Nature to do her job as supplier of our groceries, meat and fish. All that is left for the cook to do is to present her produce in the purest and simplest way.

      My mother died when I was six, leaving my father, a chef, to look after three young boys traumatised by their loss and in need of stability and love. My old man wasn’t an outwardly affectionate father but he was always very correct and dependable. He demonstrated his love for us in the way he knew best, through food.

      We had very little spare money and fortunately, with hindsight, we were too poor to buy the tinned produce that was so fashionable at the time. Dad had always cooked a little at home, but his forte had been full English breakfasts at weekends. Now that he was stuck with all the cooking he expected all of us to muck in. We were dispatched to pick apples, forage for rhubarb and collect blackberries. As soon as we were old enough to learn how, he also sent us out to shoot rabbits and hares, and to fish for eels, trout or anything else we could land. Nothing went to waste, everything got eaten. We hunted to feed the family, not for leisure and it ignited a passion for hunting and fishing that remains with me to this day. It is my belief that before you can be a great cook you have to understand the providence of food and respect Mother Nature and her bounty.

      Today, the most important thing in my life is my kids. Nothing comes before my family. Nothing. In my three Michelin star days I cooked with my ego and not with my heart in order to gain and keep those oh-so-precious stars. I was rarely at home with my kids. They would come to see me between services at my restaurant in the Hyde Park Hotel for about half an hour every day, which wasn’t very satisfactory for any of us. In fact, my children are the reason I took the momentous decision to give back my stars. It was the only way I could spend a lot more time with them. My little ones mean the whole world to me – certainly more than three Michelin stars ever could.

      I would like this book to get families back round the dinner table and eating good food. Don’t just buy the book, have a quick flick through, then stick it back on the shelf with all your other glossy celebrity-endorsed cookbooks. This is not what Frankie and I are trying to achieve. Use it, note the recipes that Frankie and I loved as kids, which in turn are loved in equal measure by our own children, and try them out on your kids. Educating your children on the joy of good food and eating well is as important a duty for parents as teaching them good manners and how to love each other.

      If this book ends up covered in flour and sticky finger prints and with the odd note in the margin, then and only then will you have realized its true value.”

      Marco Pierre White

      FRANKIE’S BAR AND GRILL