The Secret Legacy

The Secret Legacy

Everyone in our little village in Italy seemed to know my uncle Giuseppe. He was a fantastic, professional chef, but not your run-of-the-mill type of chef. Giuseppe is famous for using secret ingredients in his tasty recipes that make people look younger and live to a hundred or more. He had a restaurant just a short distance from where my parents lived. He is retired now and is nearly ninety.

Thanks to my uncle’s secret recipes. Sure my Papa has minor arthritis, and Mama is a little overweight, but both are in their late eighties still going strong. They still have all their faculties and can still travel out of the house. And my Papa still visits his vineyards and the winery every day, a business he has had for over forty years.

I love my uncle Giuseppe; he always made me laugh. Ever since I was three years old, he has cooked for the family, and he would make us all laugh with his jokes and do funny stunts like Charlie Chaplin.

He would especially do a show whenever my sister, Sophia, brother Rico, or I had a birthday. One day I will never forget it was on my tenth birthday, thirty years ago. While all my family was together in the sitting room, waiting for Giuseppe to make one of his famous pasta recipes for dinner, he said, “Carla, come in the kitchen; I have a surprise for you!”

As I entered the kitchen, he softly grabbed both my hands, stared at me and smiled with his pearly white teeth, and said, “Carla, do you believe in Magic?”

“Yes! Yes!” Uncle Giuseppe, I shouted, jumping up excitedly, wondering what he was going to do next.

Moments later, he pointed to a plate of spaghetti on the table and asked me to look at the pasta.

“Now close your eyes and count to five; now, open your eyes,” he said.

Suddenly, there on the plate, the spaghetti began to riggle, then spin and twirl. Individual pieces started untangling themselves and began rising slowly. Now, the single pieces of spaghetti bobbed and weaved just like a Cobra snake would. I was so mesmerised I couldn’t move. After what may have been only a couple of minutes, the pasta slowly wiggled back down on the plate and stopped moving.

"How did you do that, Giuseppe?" I screamed, jumping up and down in excitement.

"Please do it again, please!” I pleaded with him.

My uncle grabbed my hands gently again, putting a finger up to his mouth, and said:

" Sh! Sh!'' “You must promise not to tell anyone, Carla; this is our little secret. It's a birthday surprise from me to you?" He whispered with a wink of his eye.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! so much, uncle Giuseppe!” I remember saying, as I clapped madly, overcome with emotion. To this very day, I still have no idea how he did that trick with the spaghetti!

My uncle became so popular with his secret recipes, helping the locals to a healthy and long life—that many of them lived into their nineties, and some even reached a century and are still alive today!

Soon news traveled throughout Italy, and It wasn’t long before TV and newspaper journalists visited Giuseppe.

Try as they may, they could never find out the secret ingredients of his healthy recipes. An American cooking magazine in 1975 offered Giuseppe 100,000 dollars for his secret ingredients, but he turned them down. He would have been rich then. I did one day recently ask him why he turned the magazine down. His answer was, money isn’t everything!

Still, uncle Giuseppe had a thriving business with his restaurant. People would come from all over Italy and the world just to try one of his recipes.

A year ago, when I visited my uncle on my own,

I said to him, don’t you regret not passing on your secret ingredients to someone to carry on your legacy?

He turned to me in his armchair and, with a smile, said, “Ho gia in mente una persona”- I already have a person in mind!

Since that day, I have tried unsuccessfully to determine the likely candidate Giuseppe would pass on his secret. Could it be his only son, Luca, who is an architect but has no genuine interest in food except to eat it? Indeed, not his brother, Giovanni, who has no interest in cooking and is a farmer most of the day. Then there’s Giuseppe’s wife, Aunt Mia, some three years younger. Yes, she cooks but not to a chef's standard. Maybe it’s an entirely unknown person I have never seen or heard of before? Anyway, whoever it is, my uncle needs to pass his secret to them before it is too late.

After a few weeks, when I visited Giuseppe and Mia, we watched a TV documentary on the secrets to living a longer life. Moments later, a nutritionist mentioned that he had discovered the recipe for long and healthy life and fired off a list of superfoods. He then said what he believed to be the nutrients people should have in their daily lives to increase their life span. Suddenly, my uncle, Giuseppe, gave an outburst,

“No! No! They have got it all wrong! Stupido!”

With that, he said something strange:

“It’s not what nutrients you use that is the secret; it’s what you do with the nutrients that make all the difference!”

I saw him blush. It was as if he had just realised he had started to let out his secret of a long life in front of Mia and me! That was the closest I've ever got to learning his secret ingredients. But I am still none the wiser!

He quickly melted away the awkward, intense moment by turning to me and asking me how Mama and Papa were—ignoring the rest of the TV documentary.

Two years ago, after Mama and Papa passed on in their nineties, Uncle Giuseppe and his wife Mia were getting close to their century. Indeed, it was Giuseppe's 100th birthday today, Saturday, and my sister, brother, and our families and I were all invited.

Later that day, my family, husband Paolo, and my two children, daughter Bianca and son, Gino, arrived at Giuseppe and Mia’s home for Giuseppe’s birthday.

As we walked into the garden, I had never witnessed such a feast before in my life on what was a glorious, summer warm day!

Outside in the large garden, stretched out on four long tables, were a display of bowls of various olives, salads, numerous varieties of tomatoes, all of which I had never seen before! There was an array of cheeses, Mozzarella, Gorgonzola, Burrata. Green, purple, black, and red grapes, large pizzas, and many different dips. There must have been a dozen other loaves of bread, including garlic and olive bread.

My Cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles, and aunts all feasted on dipping their pieces of bread in the assortment of dips Guiseppe had made with his secret ingredients.

Apart from an enormous variety of Italian foods, there were many types of Italian wines also on the tables. I brought some of them which I got from my Papa's winery; now, I have taken over the business with my sister, Sophia, and brother Rico. There were: Albana, Canaiolo, Corvina, Dolcetto, Merlot, Nero D’Avola, and Sangiovese, to name a few.

After an hour, Aunt Mia announced a band she had hired to play music for the special occasion. Meanwhile, uncle Giuseppe was in the kitchen preparing pasta for one of his specialty dishes for everyone. After having something to eat and drink, I went into the kitchen to say happy birthday to Giuseppe. As I came in, he asked me to close the door.

“Come in, Carla; I have been expecting you!” Giuseppe said, turning around after he had just placed a lid on a large pot of pasta, on the hob.

“Carla,” Giuseppe said, grabbing my hands gently, with his soft, warm hands.

“Do you still believe in magic?” suddenly, memories came flooding back to me of when I was that ten-year-old girl again on her birthday.

“Yes!” I shouted, feeling a tingle run through my spine. He stared at me and smiled with his still, pearly white teeth but now greyer hair.

“Do you want to know my secret ingredients for being healthy and having a long life?” He whispered, still holding my hands.

“Look over there at that plate of spaghetti on the table!” Giuseppe said, pointing to the pasta. Count to five and open your eyes. As I did like before all those years ago

The spaghetti began to move, rise and untangle itself into single pieces. The pieces of pasta then jiggled and started to dance.

My heart raced. It was just too fantastic to believe.

“Now, Carla, go over and touch it and believe it will make you healthy and live a long life!” My uncle said,

When I touched the spaghetti, still moving above the plate

I felt a surge of energy rush through me, and then the pasta glowed a golden colour. A moment later, it slowly sank onto the plate.

“There, Carla, I knew it would be you to carry on my legacy!” Whispered Giuseppe, his face beaming.

“You see, Carla, it’s not the ingredients in the food that is the secret, but it’s the loving energy you put into the food that is the secret to a long and healthy life!”

End