Mamma Agata | Chiara and her Personal Advice | Gennaro and the Wine | Salvatore and the Garden
Mamma Agata
The cooking career of Mamma Agata started at the young age of thirteen. She went
to work in order to help her family and was employed in the kitchen of a wealthy
American lady who owned a summer villa in Ravello, overlooking the Amalfi Coast.
Mamma Agata's first experience in the kitchen proved her to be a natural, and in
just a few months the meals shifted from American food to the regional specialties
of the Amalfi. They called her "Baby Agata" since she was so young but
dedicated to her craft.
Either cooking for a large gathering or an impromptu poolside lunch, the approach
was always the same. Traditional dishes with regional ingredients replaced formal
ones and Mamma Agata always remembered her guest's favorites. When Fred Astaire
came to call, after a lunch of spaghetti alla puttanesca, he would waltz the hostess's
elderly mother around the courtyard. Humphrey Bogart was more reserved, and quietly
ate his alici fritti while taking in the view. The pasta e fagioli was a dish exclusively
reserved for Anita Eckberg, a gloriously tall woman with skin like milk. But, the
favorite memory that Mamma Agata shares is that of Jacqueline Kennedy, who impressed
her with "un eleganza molto simplice" an elegant simplicity that was unique
only to her, enjoying mozzarella and tomato salad by the pool.
She worked until her middle twenties, when she married and had children. When her
children became adults, she was sought after to prepare private dinners for politicians
and writers such as Agnelli and Gore Vidal. In 1997, the idea of the cooking school
was born, in order to share her many talents.
Elegant simplicity! This is the way in which Mamma Agata prepares and shares a meal
at table.