My mother was pregnant with me the day her father took her to visit the kitchen of the cargo ship where he was working as the crew cook. They went down the narrow stairs to get to the underwater level kitchen. My mother, being a weak-stomach person, got immediately sick with the smell of paint, petrol, salt, moisture and fried onions that characterizes the belly of cargo ships. She didn't say anything, but ...

Many cooks say that for a good ragu’ different kinds of meat are required: beef, pork, lamb, veal. Purists say that only beef meat is required. I don’t dislike to mix a crumbled good fresh and rather lean sausage with the ground beef. Meat sauce – or ragù – is made with different meats all over Italy: in the south, especially Apulia, there is a predilection for lamb. In Napoli the meat is not ground: they r ...