“I started cooking when I realized I was never going to see my home in Istria ever again” Lidia Bastianich talks about her life and career simply and with a great intensity. The chef and star of American television who has become a symbol of Italian regional cuisine in the USA was hosted in the USA Pavilion in Expo Milano 2015 on Tuesday the July 7 she to talkd about her relationship with Italian and American food cultures. Interviewed byDorothy Cann Hamilton, President of the Friends of the USA Pavilion, Bastianich treated her audience to the story of the American dream of a double emigrant, who first moved from Yugoslavia to Italy and then to the USA. In her role as of Ambassador of We Women for Expo she also made some suggestions about how women can conciliate family and work.


Grandma’s garden

Born in Pola when the city was still Italian, Lidia Bastianich spent most of her childhood in the countryside, living  with her grandmother. They had a vegetable garden with chickens, pigs and a little goat. As a child, Lidia absorbs everything that surrounds her: recipes, ingredients and memories. “My taste developed in those years – she says – since then I have always tried to find those pure flavours again, such as those of ricotta and olive oil”. But then history changed everything and took her away, first into Italy as a refugee, then into the USA as an emigrant. She escaped with her parents and once away from her childhood home she realized that if she wanted to relive those moments she would have to recreate those same flavors. So she decided to learn how to cook, starting at home, where she embarked on the culinary pathway that would lead her to success.

 

Being 12 years old in New York

When the Bastianich family settled in New York at the end of the 1950s, Lidia was still a young girl: "American food was fun! The United States was full of energy and enthusiasm - she remembers - we would eat Italian food at home though. Actually, at the time, Americans didn’t know true Italian food. There was an Italian-American cuisine that had more to do with the United States than with Italy, such as spaghetti and meatballs, that I happened to like, in any case”.

 

Drawing the best from every culture

Lidia Bastianich's life is composed of work and family, bonded together by passion. Restaurant owner and chef, author of cook books and a famous TV presenter all over America, she is also the mother of two and grandmother of five. She also has a degree in biology. A symbol of the American dream, she says that she was lucky enough to simply do what she liked doing, following the advice of her pediatrician who had explained to her that "Children want to live in a family where their parents are happy". Speaking about her relationship with Italian and American cultures she says: “I appreciate Italian creativity and the Italians’ taste for the pleasures of life. While, I learned about marketing and sharing from America". Her son Joe Bastianich, also a chef, great communicator and Ambassador of Expo Milano 2015 has followed in her footsteps and inherited her passion for cooking.

 

A woman that thinks as a professional

Lidia Bastianich is also an Ambassador of We Women for Expo. When asked "Was it difficult for you to accomplish what you have accomplished as a woman?" she answers: "It’s a bit complicated when you have children, but I would advise any woman to present herself as a professional, without fearing the comparison with men".