09-12-2013
In the portrait of Lido Vannucchi, the pastry-chef from Fiuggi Loretta Fanella, now busy with several consultancies in Italiy, her family and a project in Tuscany starting in 2014. On Sunday February the 9th, 3.50 p.m., she will have a lecture at Identità Naturali, a format within Identità Milano 2014 congress
I began my career at 15, for fun, working for a couple of months during the summer break from catering school, because I was getting bored at home and I couldn’t prepare birthday cakes for my cousins every single day. After graduating I took this job seriously. I was only 18 and I already realised that Fiuggi, the place where I was born, was too small and wouldn’t give me many opportunities in the future. I then decided to take a 3-month internship with chef Fabio Tacchella in Verona. I promised to return, but I never did.
However, I acted as a steel woman (girl, that is). I had to prove that I was capable, in fact that I was even better than the others. Over time I conquered everyone’s trust: I was made in charge of starters and pastry. If I think of where I am today and remember of those times, I can only laugh... And almost everywhere, the story was always the same: many colleagues, later confessed, thought «What does that girl, so delicate, so skinny and relaxed expect? Here, you’ve got to run and work, she’ll never make it». In a short time they realized they were wrong.
The strange and unjust thing is that we, since we are small girls, grow up with this image of our mothers and other women cooking. Why can’t it be the same, to be the head of a professional kitchen and be called “chef”? I also need to add that it often happens that women take advantage of being women to profit on the excuse that they are weaker: «I can’t lift the flour bag or the water, can you do it?», or «today I can’t come to work because I have my period or a tummy ache». Such an attitude is dangerous.
I was lucky enough to have many good experiences when I was very young. I worked in important restaurants that allowed me to establish myself and have the freedom to stop, later, to build a family, even though it was hard to leave the daily life at the restaurant. For a woman chef, it is important to have by your side someone who can stand seeing you at work in the kitchen for so many hours, seeing you travel frequently, and share great part of your time in an environment full of men. It’s not easy but it’s not impossible either. Related articles We’re not angels of the hearth by Cristina Bowerman Two or three things I wanted to tell you by Loretta Fanella
Men who, for a moment, leave pots and pans to tell us their experience and point of view
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