What inspired Pasta & Magic?

Being a lazy pasta cook, always cooking the same pasta dishes. Looking for inspiration. My mother's ragù. Countless Italian holidays and memories of eating with family at home in Italy. 

​

​

How long did the book take to write?

I started the Pasta & Magic project at the end of the first summer of the Covid Lockdown in the UK. It began as a family recipe book project but within 18 months I had launched a public recipe website and forum. The books have been a development of my online and social media content and they'll be published in sequence starting with Oil Sauces.

 

From the start I was adamant that I wanted to do as much of the production of the book myself, if I could. That was partly a budget decision and partly a wish to show that I'd photographed actual meals I'd cooked for my family, without the help or the use of professional food stylists, photographers, studios and so on. As it's turned out, with the exception of some 3rd party help for my website's database of recipes, absolutely all the content, writing, photography, design and of course the cooking are my own.

​​​​​

​

What makes this book different from other pasta cookbooks?

 

a) The format.  Early on, when I was planning the book, I stumbled on a unique concept that fixed my pasta inspiration problem overnight and determined the shape of the whole project.

​

THE UNIVERSE CONTAINS ONLY FOUR TYPES OF PASTA SAUCE.

 

Any sauce or pasta dish you can think of will either be based on an Oil Sauce, a Pesto, a Dairy Sauce or a Tomato sauce. That's how I've themed each recipe book in the series and it's an incredibly easy way of coming up for ideas for pasta dishes. Pick and ingredient and think about what sauce it would work with. It's practically impossible not to create new pasta dishes when you walk down any supermarket aisle! 

​

b) History.  I'm fascinated by the history and origins of pasta shapes and sauces but I'm not a food historian. But history's massively important for getting inspiration for your pasta meals, and that's why I've drawn inspiration from dozens of historical sauces, from the pasta cooks of Medieval England and the Roman Empire to the 17th and 18th century regional pasta recipes of the Italian City States. For me, a historical element to a recipe also helps to authenticate it, or at least explain why we've arrived at a given combination of ingredients or cooking technique. So that's why I've tried to research as many of the regional and historically sourced recipes as I can, which in turn have been the springboard for me to come up with variations or alternative versions of them.

​​

​

​

Who is Pasta & Magic for?

Home cooks or anyone who wants to add to their pasta recipe repertoire. Especially those who would like to cook recipes that have their heritage firmly rooted in Italian food, customs and traditions.

 

I'm a home cook and right now no one has ever heard of me. And I suppose that makes me a lot like other people sitting at home making pasta. Quite frankly though, I find that equally humbling and comforting.

​

It's important now to add now that for almost all my professional life I've been prone to 'imposter syndrome', the fear of being exposed as an amateur or a fraud and not really credible at all. It's just the way I am, I suppose. But I'm delighted to be able to say that, at least in relation to my food writing, two things in particular have helped me find a little peace and reassurance.

 

First of all, the feedback I've had during the pre-launch of the book, from pretty high profile individual food writers and professionals has been massively encouraging, as has been the comments and reviews I've received from customers and readers on Amazon.

​

Secondly, I need to blame the playwright Peter Shaffer. I recently rewatched the film of his 'Amadeus,' and one line in particular keeps coming back to me. It's when F. Murray Abraham, as Antonio Salieri, declares:​

​

"...I speak for all mediocrities in the world.

I am their champion. I am their patron saint.."​​

​

You see, feeling like you're an amateur and not an expert makes it a lot easier to write for other amateurs and non-experts. Or even to write for experts, for that matter. 

​

In my promotional videos on social media I say that absolutely anyone can cook the recipes in my book and absolutely anyone can get inspiration from them... so I suppose at the root of this project is the hope there's something that will inspire everyone, from casual pasta cooks at home to working professional chefs and food writers.

​

​

Why 'Pasta & Magic?'

I've noticed that Federico Fellini's quote "la vita è una combinazione di magia e pasta" ("life is a combination of magic and pasta") is tossed around so often by lazy writers, simply because, it seems, it contains the word 'pasta.' In practically all cases, I've never seen anyone try to make sense of it or to try and work out exactly what it means.

​

You'll need to read Pasta & Magic for my full explanation, but part of it is that I suspect Fellini loved to be seen as a sorcerer, the font of the creative spark that was the impetus  for his writing and film direction. Fellini was also a great food lover, but it's unclear from the context of the quote whether or not he intended pasta to be a symbol of the everyday and the mundane, in comparison with the creative fairy dust he could bring to artistic projects. I suspect he would have loved the ambiguity of that.

​​​

 

What do you hope that readers take away?

​

For me, of course, pasta is magic; it's so much more than an everyday, feel-good food. Here are my closing paragraphs to the book:

 

​"...I hope you’ve found some meals you’ll want to cook again and again, for yourself, your partner, your friends, your children.... your grandchildren.

 

But if any of them ever asks where you got the recipe or how you came up with it, just say you can’t remember. Say it’s been around forever, or if you like, that you dreamt it up half an hour ago.​ Tell them that pasta can be as simple or as grand as they like. Tell them that pasta can win them the love of their lives and make them feel happy when that’s the hardest thing for them to feel; but tell them it shouldn’t ever be called ‘comfort food.’ It’s not a refuge or solace, it’s a celebration. Of tastes, flavours, ingredients, cultures, traditions and history;  so much more than just ‘comfort.’ Tell them that pasta has woven its strands into all of our lives and it can bring family and loved ones closer together, whether you see their faces once a month, once a year, or even if you can never see them ever again.

 

Or just tell them if they love food like this, chances are their lives too will end up being one big, fat, overflowing plate of pasta and magic."​​​​​​​​​​​​

​

​

​