“My love affair with Italy began as a young boy in the port of Naples on a hydrofoil to Ischia. Naples is my favorite city in Italy. But also Palermo, Catania, and of course Rome, which I absolutely love.” Tom Parker Bowles is a river in flood in declaring his love for the Bel Paese and Italian cuisine: at a British Italian Society evening at the Italian Cultural Institute in London (Iic) directed by Francesco Bongarrà, the first-bed son of Queen Camilla, a well-known food critic in his homeland and author of numerous books dedicated to cuisine, speaks in particular of the food of the South as “something incredible and fascinating.”
If in his latest book, ‘The Crown’s Kitchen,’ Parker Bowles focused on accessible recipes for everyday use, showing royal culinary habits as a reflection of history and traditions, at the Institute of Culture he recounts the “miracle of exquisite simplicity” of Italian food.
Not without dwelling on his less ordinary passion of going in search of truffles: a passion shared – he reveals – with his mother Camilla and King Charles, whom he calls “my stepfather.” “To make a point: last Christmas,” Parker Bowles recalls, “mother gave my stepfather a truffle dog.
The truth, he concludes, however, is that “there is always a good reason to go to Italy, where I avoid starred restaurants and instead happily eat in trattorias and talk about food with people. Because food brings people together.” With an absolute preference, openly confessed: for any kind of slow-cooked ragout.
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Dining and Cooking