While some losses become easier to bear over time, others grow harder. My Nana passed away when I was too young to have the perspective to ask about her life the way I wish I could now. The best of her is preserved in her recipes. Something of an heirloom in our family, her combination of ingredients defined so much of who she was. Feeling connected to Nana and her Italian heritage is getting harder as the years go by, but I wondered now if by trying to learn her famous biscotti recipe, she could still teach me something about what it means to be a part of this culture.
“Nonna” is the Italian word for grandmother. It’s pronounced like the name Donna but with an accentuated “aw” sound over the letter o, giving it the classic diphthong that characterizes the Italian accent. As kids, my brother and I could never get it right and our best articulation of the word came out something like, “Nuh-nuh.” This used to make my dad’s sweet mother smile. She signed her cards “Nana,” spelling this rendition of her title more in line with Italian phonetics than English.
Her recipes have a soundtrack in my mind. Each dish, recorded in the flowing strokes of her penmanship, is tied to a Dean Martin album where I hear Nana singing along into a battered wooden spoon, the staccato of each word bouncing off her shimmering, lined lips.
“What’s comb-o-bella chell a-luna?” I’d ask, repeating the lyrics back to her as best I could.
“Com'è bella c'è la luna!” She’d repeat, her hand motioning to draw out each of the syllables. I’d mouth the words silently, trying to mimic the way her tongue formed the sounds. “It means, how beautiful is the moon!”
While many of my Italian lessons featured vocabulary from Dean Martin, “Mangi!” is the first Italian word I remember learning from her; it’s the command to eat.
In my own kitchen now, more than a decade later, I was unfamiliar with several of Nana’s listed ingredients (anisette, anyone?) Fumbling through the first few steps of the recipe, I felt embarrassed at the clumsy motions of my hands. I spilled the sugar, splashed vanilla across my shirt, and nearly mistook baking powder for baking soda.
Squinting my eyes, I held the folded cardstock up to a light to try and decipher my next steps. “2 Tbs. Anise Seed” was crossed out, correcting itself to “4 desired,” with a note in the margin suggesting to “slightly crush.” I followed as commanded.
Reaching the end of the recipe, I sunk my fingers into the soft, sticky dough and shaped each loaf carefully before sliding the pan into the oven.
The word “biscotti” comes from Latin roots meaning “twice cooked,” named for the method of first baking the dough as a loaf, then slicing, flipping, and returning the cookies to the oven once more to give them that characteristically crunchy texture. Nana’s original recipe, however, made no mention of this. She probably did this so naturally that she never needed to write it down.
If she was here now, I could ask her. I’d be seated in the kitchen, observing carefully, waiting patiently beside my grandpa, Nana’s perfectly balanced partner. I don’t remember him before the Parkinson’s disease, but I know he was an Army man and later, quite the golfer. Nana was the opposite of his slow, shaky motions. While Grandpa would sit quietly, she’d dart quickly around the house: cooking, serving, tidying.
“Are you through?” she’d ask, taking his empty dish away before he could answer. “I’ll bring you some more.”
You were never through eating at Nana’s house because Nana was never through cooking.
The ding! of the oven came several minutes after the house was filled with a warm, familiar aroma. My biscotti was soft yet rightly firm and a beautiful golden brown. They looked perfect.
Picking up the small, oblong cookie, I dipped it in the fresh mug of black coffee beside me and sunk my teeth into it with a delightful crunch. In that first bite, I was taken aback by an unfamiliar yet wholly recognizable taste, one that had long characterized Nana’s cooking. I felt sucked back in time–back to her oaky kitchen with the wicker chairs. Under the gentle almond and vanilla flavors was a darker, heavier, almost bitter tone. It was the anise. I was nostalgic for a taste I didn’t know I missed.
In the spirit of authenticity and honoring my grandmother’s legacy, I wanted to know if this was the truest, most Italian form of the recipe.
Biscotti originated during the Roman Empire where it served as a hardtack for soldiers as it could be preserved easily and traveled well. With the proliferation of the Empire, so spread biscotti and new adaptations of it. Common flavors vary widely to include almond and anise, like Nana’s, or chocolate, fig, and pistachio. Shelves of my local grocery stores feature a wide variety of biscotti, but I doubt “pumpkin spice” was a traditional flavor of medieval Italy.
It turns out that “truest, most Italian” varies depending on whom you ask. “Italian” cuisine is a concept and a fluid one at that. I’ve been told you could ask five Italians how to prepare any given dish and get seven different answers. Authenticity, particularly in the Italian sense, is paradoxically inherited through strict adherence to tradition and created through new evolutions of a recipe. There exists a fierce competitiveness of Italians over the “correctness” of their recipes–and that correctness can vary from town to town and generation to generation. There’s a pride in both heritage and originality.
In New York, bakers at The Biscotti Company follow a 200-year-old family recipe yet “continue to evolve and diversify biscotti,” they say, underscoring its cultural significance, even in varied forms and flavors. For them and many others, these variations serve as continuations in the evolution that has allowed the survival of centuries-old culinary traditions.
Perhaps connecting with my grandmother’s heritage isn’t about merely copying her steps perfectly but rather understanding them well enough to connect with the essence of her recipe and build upon it. After all, what makes Nana’s biscotti special is the uniqueness of it–the distinct way she made it her own. Biscotti, from its inception, has never stopped evolving.
In this vein, I returned to the recipe once more. Working through the steps with an earned familiarity, I kept the anisette but traded the anise extract for hazelnut. Where Nana’s notes crossed out two tablespoons of anise seed in favor of four, I decided to try three. I increased the amount of crushed almonds to taste.
The result was authentically Nana, yet distinctly me. Her personality was still there, but now it was balanced with something that felt like it belonged to me.
Culture isn’t stagnant. It adapts, survives, and takes on new shapes while preserving the authentic spirit of its roots and traditions; it’s something that lives on through generations because it’s alive. And now, more than ever, Nana’s biscotti recipe feels alive to me, too.
Culture isn’t stagnant. It adapts, survives, and takes on new shapes while preserving the authentic spirit of its roots and traditions; it’s something that lives on through generations because it’s alive.
The result was authentically Nana, yet distinctly me.
Now, more than ever, Nana’s biscotti recipe feels alive to me, too.