Silvia Marani’s 94-year-old mother calls her daily from Bologna to advise on the preparation of the ragu at Merlo Ristorante, the romantic establishment Marani and her husband, Giampaolo Sassi, opened in December. Part of an age-old tradition of female cooks who guard one of Italy’s most sophisticated cuisines, Marani has been preparing ragu under her mother’s watchful eye for as long as she can remember. As the ragu simmers for four or five hours, Marani instructs one cook on the preparation of the fresh pasta, while another learns to fashion sumptuous pastries and a third observes the fine art of antipasti and secondi.
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Bolognan by birth, Marani and Sassi were childhood friends in the ancient walled capital of the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. Then they went on to live separate lives. Sassi sold financial services before becoming a diamond merchant; Marani designed sweaters for Max Mara and supervised their production. When they rediscovered each other 15 years ago, “We surprised ourselves and a lot of other people, too,” says Sassi. After all, they were both married and had five children between them.
The wartime need to value and preserve food sources impressed itself on the couple, who belong to the international Slow Food movement. Using the snail as its symbol, Slow Food was founded in Italy in 1986 to promote “the flavors and savors of regional cooking.” Practitioners like to get to know their suppliers and keep tabs on production methods. The Sassis shop daily, use only fresh ingredients, and never freeze them. Some of Emilia-Romagna’s hallmark elements–balsamic vinegar, Parma ham, mortadella, and Parmigiana Reggiano–are imported from home. “We use very little tomato,” says Giampaolo, but they use a lot of sweet nutmeg, fresh garlic, red pepper, black pepper, butter, olive oil, and milk.
From the exquisitely formed tortelloni to the perfectly chopped ragu, Marani draws on every secret mama ever taught her. And while legend has it that tortellini were created by a Bolognan innkeeper to resemble Venus’s belly button, Giampaolo is not convinced. “Others need stories. We have the food.”
