Arthur Schwartz - Naples at Table: Cooking in Campania

O NE OF THE REASONS I gravitate to the region of Campania is the openness and warmth of its people, the way they readilyeven eagerlydraw you into their lives, families, and homes. This quality has made the research and writing of this book a great life experience, as well as much easier than I dared expect. One friend has led to another, one kitchen to another, and I now have many home cooks, restaurant chefs, discerning eaters, and food chroniclers to thank.

I must start where I began, at Tenuta Seliano in Paestum, the farm and Agri-Tourism inn of Baronessa Cecilia Bellelli Baratta, where I went several years ago to convince myself that this was a project I should undertake. It didnt take more than a day with Cecilia, her adult sons Massimino and Ettore, and her right-hand kitchen assistant Anna DAmato. I have spent many glorious, educational, hard-working, hard-playing, tear- and laughter-filled days with Cecilia. I have seen Massimino grow into a good cook himself and Ettore become an accomplished organizer of the many parties nowadays catered at Seliano. Ive learned much about the inner life of Campania through the hospitality, observations, and connections of Cecilia and her extended family, which includes her mother, Elvira, in the Art Deco family villa in Battipaglia, her sister Laura and brother-in-law Savj Marano in Salerno, and her sisters Rosaria and Enrica and their families, also of Salerno.

Back in New York, I have long admired the Neapolitan-style cooking of Ida Cerbone, a native and still part-time resident of Pignataro Interamna, who owns the restaurant Manducatis in the borough of Queens with her husband Vincent, a native of Naples. At their home in Italy, now occupied full-time by their American-born sons, Piero and Joseph, Josephs wife Leila Evangelista, and Joe and Leilas young children Beatrice and Vincenzo, I was accepted as one of the familyand as one of the in-laws by Modestina, Arcangelo, and Lucilla Evangelista, Leilas parents and sister. Through the Cerbone sons and the Evangelistas, I was also privileged to meet and spend kitchen time with Antonio and Gina Evangelista of the restaurant Sordella 1919, Elisa and Carmine Evangelista of the restaurant LEspero, and Marisa Marano, the woman who cooked for Modestina Evangelistas family when she was a working mother.

From the beginning, I was encouraged by Marchese Franco Santasillia di Torpino, Neapolitan gastronome and author of La cucina aristocratica napoletana ; my very old friend Antonio Mastroberardino, whose Campanian wines have long been considered among the best wines of southern Italy; Antonios son and American daughter-in-law, Carlo and Kelle Mastroberardino, who are carrying the familys winemaking tradition into its third generation; New York pal Anna Teresa Callen, the Italian cooking teacher and cookbook author; and my soul-brother Francesco de Rogati, who is Genovese but has summered in Ischia for so long that I sometimes forget he is from the north. (My father was Neapolitan, he always reminds me.)

Among my greatest inspirations and most encouraging cheerleaders were the brothers Maurizio and Bruno De Rosa and their mother Rita, who divide their time between a New York restaurant, Pierino, an apartment in the Vomero section of Naples, and a wonderful house in Scauri, a beach-side enclave of Neapolitans in southern Lazio. I have spent many hours and days in New York and Italy cooking with them, at table with them, and going through many trials and tribulations of life with them.

In the heart of Naples, in the old quarter of Spaccanapoli, I am indebted to Rosario Mazzella, the noted Neapolitan painter, his wife, Rosa, and their son Marcello, an artist in New York who introduced me to them. No one knows Naples better than Rosario, and his guided walks and drives around the city have made me at times feel like a native, too. I think of Rosa as my Neapolitan sister. We bonded immediately. Enough said.

Michi Ambrosi, who, with her daughter Bianca, runs the Neapolitan cooking school and catering company Il Peperoncino, took the time to write me a list of the essential dishes of la cucina napoletana , explain it all for me one afternoon in her sprawling apartment, and give me a precious copy of Nello Oliveros Storie e curiosit della cucina napoletana . Camilla Giannuzzi Savelli, another generous new friend, loaned me her copies of the cookbooks published by Il Mattino , the Neapolitan newspaper, and got me VIP seats to witness the Miracle of San Gennaro.

In Capua, Francesca Pasca di Magliano, proprietor of the elegant Agri-Tourism farm Masseria Gisole, was generous with her knowledge of her native Naples and adopted home in the province of Caserta. And in the city of Caserta itself, water buffalo breeder Onofrio Piccirillo not only taught me what I needed to know about the cheeses of Campania, but drove and guided me to places and experiences in his province that I would have otherwise never seen or had. In Frasso Telesino, Gianna and Pasquale Amore and their extended family helped me understand the differences between the food of Benevento and the rest of Campania.