Gather Your Wisdom
She could never wrap her head around the name of the venue. Why, if this city is grand enough to be known as “the Pearl of the Atlantic,” has my family chosen such a senseless combination of words? Delia would stubbornly ask herself. The petit hotel had been baptized following a combination of the owners’ surnames: Ba y Vi. Both men were in-laws, but they considered each other brothers and that’s what they would always say if you asked them how they were related. Any and every decision was made by these two, and that had been the case long before one of them had fallen in love with the other’s sister. Luisa and Virginia, “the great women behind these great men,” found their husbands’ marketing skills embarrassing. Nonetheless, they were not consulted. Once the men settled the matter, the women found out about the official name when they saw the Ba y Vi logo printed on the correspondence stationery. It sounded like “baby.” Delia hated it.
Her mum Luisa, with Virginia, had taken on the domestic labor at the hotel. They had divided the tasks according to their fortes and work experience—except for laundry, which they had to tackle together to prevent wrist injuries. Luisa was a fantastic seamstress; she’d choose the linen to be converted into king-size sheets and ornamental tablecloths. Virginia would later beautify them: embroidering and crocheting each piece until it resembled a work of art, unique and irreplaceable. The heavy wooden closets were colonized by the same four colors: white, pastel pink, powder blue, and pale green. A seemingly endless array of possibilities with just cotton, thread, and talent of the hand. Delia had learned to just watch from afar as the ladies heated up a cast-iron block directly on the stove to smooth out the wrinkles ruining their creations. She knew ironing was dangerous. The handles needed to be wrapped in thick layers of knitted pads, though they were no certain protection against a sizzling block of metal. It was undoubtedly no place for a 6-year-old.
However, there was another hazardous area of the property where she was not only allowed, but welcomed. Despite being the youngest of the family, Delia cherished spending time in the kitchen with her mum, Luisa: the head cook, the stove master, the crowd-feeder. Each day, she would prepare an everchanging three-course menu for the families staying with them. To open the appetite, she would serve a small bowl of vegetable consommé. As a starter, cold cuts (usually recycled from whatever she had prepared the night before) with mayo-based potato salad. The main was the least predictable dish: Beef? Pasta? Casserole? Pizza? It was Delia’s favorite course because it felt like a game. What is this? How has she made it? I want to know, she’d ponder to herself.
There was only one day when Delia could be sure about the fate of the main. On the 29th day of each month, Luisa would make gnocchi, as we Argentines do when we have the time, or when the date falls on a Sunday, Holy Pasta Day. There was no written recipe; just a handful of instructions passed on verbally, repeated infinite times until they became carved into the cook’s brain.
“Delia, listen. To determine how many potatoes you should use, just count the people you’re going to feed,” Luisa grabbed the potato sack firmly. “You will need one medium-size potato per head, plus one additional big potato for the pot.”
“A potato for the pot?” Delia was visibly confused, despite loving the idea of feeding a saucepan.
“Yes, this formula never fails. Now, pay attention. It’s very important to boil the potatoes until they’re very soft. See? See how I prickle them, and the knife gets buried into the flesh, with no effort from me? Try it.”
Delia could never forget what she felt when she dug the point of the serrated knife into the steamy underground stem; it had the texture of cream and smelled earthy, as the skins were still on. The potato slid back into the pot, splashing her hand slightly.
“We must be careful when we’re in the kitchen,” said Luisa softly, but firmly. “Never let an ingredient fall abruptly into boiling water. Make sure you have another utensil at hand, like a spoon, so if the potato wants to jump back in, you can catch it.”
They strained the potatoes and let them cool down. Then Luisa peeled them with the tips of her long delicate fingers, aided by her stainless-steel pairing knife. The potato ricer was already at the counter top, waiting for its turn on Delia’s hands. One by one, she mashed the clean spuds with the heavy device, which reminded her of the bingo machine with all that spinning. As soon as she was finished, Luisa gave her a new task.
“We must work fast when the potatoes are still warm, mi amor. Arrange them on the countertop in the shape of a large circle. Now watch me adding flour all around it, like a crown.”
“But mum, how much flour does it need?”
“Don’t worry about that. You will just know. See? It’s a thin powdery ribbon. Too much flour results in a dense gnocchi. We must only add whatever flour the potato requests.”
Delia was an avid learner but the instructions didn’t make much sense. Her mum talked about ingredients as if they were alive.
“Now we’re going to add the glue. Please, make a hole inside the potatoes. No, a bigger hole. That’s better. I will add the eggs here, and some nutmeg and reggiano cheese, and a yolk because… because I just like them better with an extra yolk! Start mixing with a fork, working your way outwards, from the center. Ah, and I didn’t add salt because I had already generously salted the boiling water with coarse salt. But try the mash without glue, and tell me if it’s ok.”
“Uh-huh. Do I get to knead this?” asked Delia, pointing at the paste. Her eyes were kind, a softness she would use knowingly to her advantage. She loved sticky textures and had forgotten all about the salt and that the most important factor is how food tastes. She just wanted to play.
“No, you don’t. We don’t knead gnocchi. We just bring the dough together by pressing it and folding it gently.”
Delia couldn’t hide her disappointment. Luisa quickly noticed.
“Don’t worry, mi amor. There’s still plenty for you to do.” She knew she had to keep the little one entertained, or else the recipe transmission would collapse. As she rolled the dough into thick cylinders, she instructed Delia to cut them with a butter knife into quite large bite-size pieces.
“We don’t like tiny gnocchi in this family. We must have a substantial unit to chew. Now, for the fun part. Please grab the wooden utensil I left next to the flour. This is crucial for the sauce to hold onto these pillowy nuggets. Hold the rigagnocchi on your left hand, and roll each square gently down its ridges with your right hand. Look at the movement in my thumb: I’m barely pressing. This dough is as tender as a kitten. Treat it with care.”
Delia smashed the first three gnocchi against the wooden paddle, out of excitement of having been appointed with such an endeavor. By the fourth try, she’d understood the assignment.
“What else, mum? What else?” she almost yelled, her tone simultaneously inquisitive and delightful.
“You’ve helped me more than enough today. Now go find something to do with this beautiful weather. Tía Virginia and I will be slammed for the day. We need to get everything ready for the passengers arriving in a few. A new month is about to begin, Delia!”
Tourists would flock to Mar del Plata in the summer, enticed by the glamour and charm of its shores. The landscape had been meticulously designed to mimic Biarritz’s architecture and attract the same élites. However, Ba y Vi thrived on social tourism. Since trade unions had allowed workers to enjoy summer vacations, too, the hotel would consistently welcome the same loyal families every year. This was the only reality Delia had ever known, since birth.
The city offered all these fancy activities she’d heard about but actually had never seen: the Yacht Club, the Golf Club, even a Pigeons’ Club! She was hopeful she’d meet at school someone with a membership to the latter, as her naive mind painted a picture for the Pigeons’ club that had nothing to do with reality. She’d imagined a bird circus of sorts, where the animals would perform tricks and jump through tiny hoops (Oh, boy was she disappointed when it was explained what they actually did there.) This world was not hers, but she didn’t truly care. She did love, though, the recurring International Movie Festival or, as she later explained to me, she just liked the actresses’ gowns.
*
“It was all so charming! And you must understand, I was raised at a hotel. How can I not be this picky? I mean in life, but especially with food! Your abuela would adapt all recipes to my taste. She would even remove the fibrous midrib of the lettuce just because I didn’t enjoy its texture.”
“I know, mum. And now you even peel grapes,” I sighed, smiling from the corner of my eyes. She would always contest that she didn’t bother anyone to peel them for her. She insisted on her right to undress every fruit before ingestion.
“I know I’m quirky, but your aunt is the same so I guess it is your abuela’s fault. Oh, it’s gnocchi time!”
I was salivating at the thought of her cloud-like parcels. I was sure she would have paired them with her fresh sauce: just lots of olive oil, garlic, and barely cooked grated tomatoes. To my surprise, I saw her coming out of the kitchen with an oven tray. As she laid it on the table, on top of a folded kitchen towel, I glimpsed over two dozen golden discs with deep brown crusty edges. Each one glistened with strands of crispy cheese.
“These are gnocchi alla Romana. I don’t even remember the last time I made them. It’s one of the few recipes I still like to check in your abuela’s favorite book. I don’t want to mess up the semolina proportion.”
Before I could ask anything, she rushed back to the kitchen. She came out holding a large block of ochre pages, loosely bound. The sturdy cardboard cover had been wrapped in embossed green endpaper, which was coming apart in pieces. I held it in my hands and read: Sinji Igarashi, director of the Brillat-Savarin in Buenos Aires, published in 1954.
“So this came out just three years after you were born,” I concluded in awe.
I knew immediately the book was a treasure. A compendium of methods for cooking and baking with French technique. I started drooling at the seemingly infinite list of dishes that could be prepared from the same ingredient. I couldn’t really guess what the recipes would turn out to be; most had proper names like olot potatoes, bamboche cod, or ice cream à la Pompadour. I wanted to eat my way through its 400 pages and discover what they entailed, one by one. I officially became a cook only after I inherited it.
I wish we could have had a ceremony. I had imagined we would choose our favorite recipes to present to each other. I wish we could have had a conversation about the importance of this book for the women in our lineage. I thought I’d have the opportunity to say how much being its guard meant to me. The actual ownership transfer didn’t feel like a ritual at all. I found the volume on a bookshelf at her house, when I traveled back to my hometown to sort out her belongings. The green endpaper was still on, even more distressed than I remembered. As soon as I grabbed it, a cornucopia of scraps fell on my feet. These were recipes I had torn from magazines, hand-copied from TV, or received from friends. The chocolate-chip cookie I was obsessed with at 13 that I’d bring to every sleepover; the newspaper Sunday column by a celebrity home economist, detailing how to make Mexican tortillas and tacos de alambre; the instructions for a savory onion cake written by my friend’s grandmother; the ingredient list for the fancy sour cream from my favorite restaurant, scribbled on a paper napkin by one of the chefs. I sat there reading them in depth, searching in my memory for the long-lost flavors. I easily found the page with gnocchi alla Romana. Under its title, a Pollock art piece of miniscule batter splats and drips of oil. The book naturally opened there, as if comfortable to lay in that position. It was one of the few possessions I brought to London in 2023, when I moved here without the slightest idea of what to do with my life.
The kitchen called, despite my family’s intentions to keep me away from it. It’s too demanding, they told me. You’ll have to sacrifice your life, they warned me. With all the effort your mum has made to provide you with higher education, they said. And it is true, to some extent. I did attend university, bored myself to death at an office, and struggled to imagine a future between the walls of a cubicle. I documented the transition exhaustively in my newsletter. I was not only mutating professions, I was leaping from one reality to another: the past, a version of the world that included her eyes and hands and voice and comfort; the now, an unspeakable void that I still grapple to make sense of.
When she left, all I wanted to do was cook. It was the only space where I could feel her. I discovered an unconventional bridge to the beyond in the tacit dialogue that emerges when I’m alone with a knife and a chopping board. What would you add, mum? What does it need? What do you think? I found relief when the answers came seamlessly. She is at my fingertips when I pick the right amount of salt, in my head when I design a menu, and in my gut when I refuse to throw away food. She advises me to guarantee my chef’s jacket is ironed and ready the night before an event. She still makes sure I don’t fall out of line, even in absence.
I am often asked where I learned my craft. My colleagues list famous institutions like Le Cordon Bleu or the Basque Culinary Center. My go-to answer is, “I come from a family of cooks.” Sometimes I delve deeper and explain how I learned from my mum, and how she learned from hers. When I do, a small miracle occurs: people slow down and open up about their own teachers. Women of all kinship: mothers, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, neighbors, friends, in-laws. I am offered a perennial array of recipes and life stories, a fountain of inspiration. When they tell me these ladies are still around, I dare to offer some advice:
Spend time watching her cook.
Ask questions.
Pay attention to her hands.
Taste the dish in all its stages.
Ask for proportions and quantities, even if she refuses.
Take notes and pictures. Make videos.
Help her clean as she cooks and afterwards.
Tell her how much you love her food.
Don’t take it for granted.
You will not find these secrets online, so gather your wisdom before it’s too late.
Lujan is both a writer who cooks and a cook who writes. She studied Translation and Literature at home, in Argentina, and later travelled the globe to learn about different cuisines and cultures. She currently lives in London where she works as a private chef with her project The Domestic Arts. You can find her on Substack.
