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Food & Wine recently published a short interview with former Maestro chef Fabio Trabocchi who talks about his dirt-poor upbringing in the remote Marche region of Italy. Despite having a wardrobe that consisted of “three shirts and three pairs of pants,” Trabocchi says his family “never stinted on Christmas.”
“A few days before Christmas, we would go from farm to farm to collect the ingredients we needed from family friends, who would set aside food for us—from the mushrooms and the eggs for the lasagna to the pork rib roast,” recalls Trabocchi (an F&W Best New Chef 2002). “I was always the first one to jump into the car to go shopping.”
Food & Wine has published a few of Trabocchi’s takes on tradition holiday dishes, including a fennel gratin and balsamic-glazed cipollini onions. To my mind, the best looking recipe has to be Trabocchi’s celery root and mushroom lasagna. Lasagna for the holidays?
“In Marche, we only make lasagna for special occasions like Christmas,” the Fiamma chef tells reporter Joyce Wadler.