The Do Village

My father came to England from Naples on a boat in 1958. Born in 1928, he endured the very worst of the devastating circumstances that befell the Neapolitans during WW2 – a period he spoke about to me only twice during his life. His trip, sponsored by the Italian and UK governments as the re-building of post war Europe gathered pace, was to him, a supreme adventure. He spoke not a word of English but was determined to self teach using only a Collins Italian-English dictionary and the daily Times newspaper. His stay was intended to last for 6 months but he met an attractive girl 10 years his junior in Torquay, and never went home.

He was a sommelier my dad, and later in life, a restaurant manager, working for Mario Cassandro and Franco Lagatolla –  the pioneers of the modern London restaurant scene as it developed after the austerity of rationing. He didn’t get the modern cult of the celebrity chef, and was quick to point out that the very best culinary maestros preferred to stay out of the limelight, running their crews with passion, and loving nothing more than creating great dishes from often humble, but always quality, fresh, ingredients. He worked 6 days a week most of his life, minimum 90 hours a week, often more.

He was difficult to please but always selfless. An old fashioned man whose family responsibilities subsumed all else. He died in 2006. He was my counsellor and his departure has left a terribly deep void. However, as I consider my life as a father just a year after the arrival of my third child, I find myself considering more and more the teachings he left me, the wisdom, the irreplaceable patina of expertise he built up during his life. Conclusion is he was a doer, he was an 18 carat doer my old man.

He taught me that families should break bread and eat together as often as possible. Eat at a table, preferably with some Italian red wine, and without hurrying; he taught me to cook well, to respect food, and to respect the producers and labourers that create it, and to be parsimonious with leftovers and waste. He used to say there needn’t be any waste, that waste was laziness. He showed me how to cook outside – to experience the unrivalled flavour of cooking over wood burnt down to embers; he taught me that when a task is to be taken on (whatever it might entail), to plan, prepare, take time to accomplish it well, and to do it with conviction.

He also taught me the value of stuff and how to upcycle. Decades before the concept was fashionable he was a pioneer of sustainable living. He up-cycled everything. (His personal favourite was 1lb aluminium marmalade tins – he gave those babies so many new lives it isn’t true). He also tutored me in the virtues of compost. He had a system as sophisticated as anything I’ve seen in the 35 years since, based on scrap pallets, sliding front access hatches, and warmth generated by old carpets and discarded tent canvas. Man that compost was beautiful. (Upside – as a young angler I had an endless supply of first class worms that Tom Szaky would have been proud of). I saw him consume little but consume well. He taught me to consume nothing that that you cannot afford to pay for in cash. He told me to avoid borrowing.

He also taught me to be loyal to family however difficult that can be at times.

As I reflect on my father I realise that his teachings were subtle, not overt. He did his stuff, and I watched. When I got a chance to muck in all I wanted to do was to please him. And boy was he tough to please. He used to say to me later in life when I phoned to discuss cooking something I’d earlier eaten with him, and I was in need of quantities and timings – why do you not watch and learn. Learn by watching and doing not studying he’d say.

If my father was still alive he’d love the Do Lectures.