Things I learned from the great Roman cook, Carla Tomasi

“If you are tired of tiramisu, you are tired of life.”

Carla Tomasi was one of the greatest cooks that I have had the pleasure to know and cook with; she cooked exactly the kind of food I love — unfussy, frugal, but completely moreish and achievable. She lived simply, tending to her beloved, abundant vegetable garden mostly alone (not for nothing is she known as The Vegetable Whisperer).

She was warm, humble, honest and open, opinionated on things that she had a right to be opinionated on and she had magic hands when it came it to pasta and focaccia. She always had time for people, to share advice or a recipe, which she would often send in a friendly voice message from her home in Ostia, on the outskirts of Rome.

A native Roman, Carla was well known to many in the London food scene back in the 1980s, where her cooking touched many from her restaurant, Frith’s, and was legendary. It was an explosive time for restaurants in the area, together with Alastair Little and Jeremy Lee, who worked across the street, “Soho was volcanic,” she said. Read her perfectly-Carla interview with The Gannet where she reminisces about how she got her start in London and how Antonio Carluccio barred her from Terence Conran’s Neal Street restaurant for two years (would only happen to an absolute legend)!

I think London also must have touched her; after so much time there, Carla would often talk about the foods and flavours that she loved from that time and brought back to Rome with her — dahl, Eckles cakes, mince pies, rhubarb, a lover of a good biscuit. I loved that about this Italian cook — she was so open to flavours and ingredients, deftly adding non-Italian ingredients to her classic Roman dishes, like a splash of kefir or a dash of dill or lemongrass (grown in her garden), in a way that was perfectly harmonious. I think that was one of her gifts.

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Pasta Grannies founder, Vicky Bennison, recalls in a tribute to Carla:

“She was a trailblazer (not a descriptor she’d use, too modest), one of the first female chefs to break through and be known in London, with her Soho restaurant Frith’s in the 1980s. She had a terrific flair for flavour but there was no showmanship - just a studied un-rushed attention to coaxing the best from her beloved vegetables. Carla was all sorts of things, opinionated, idiosyncratic, ballsy, vulnerable and funny. Above all she was generous: with her friendship, her knowledge and experience of food and cooking.”

She lived her last year alone (after her partner Andrea, suffering from a brain tumor, left to be cared for by family in Poland), with her adopted cat colony and her thriving vegetable garden, but with also a village of fierce love and support in the world she had created on instagram and, of course, with her precious Latteria cooking studio family, Rachel Roddy and Alice Carosi Adams. She passed away several days ago at the age of 70. She was an inspiration.

I “met” Carla through Rachel Roddy — I think through Rachel’s first cookbook, Five Quarters, where she often credits her teacher and mentor, Carla. We finally met and cooked together at the Latteria Studio in the autumn of 2016. It felt like meeting an old friend, I felt I already knew her through Rachel’s words and a connection on Instagram. Seeing Carla’s pasta making in real life, though, I have never seen anything quite like it, the way she rolls pasta is like an extension of her hand. Ever since, I have been hooked on anything she was cooking. She will always be, for me, the one and only pasta queen.

If you didn’t get the chance to meet her or know her through her Instagram account, I think it’s not too late to fall in love with her — her way of cooking, her way of talking with her long voice overs or voice messages, her garden’s produce and her cats, her frugal but wonderful cooking, her precious gems of advice and her opinions on vegan mozzarella or Evan Funke, the “American Sfoglino” and his macho motto “Fuck your pasta machine.”

An aside: This one that should get its own post one day because Carla was the first - only? - person to recognise this hashtag and attitude for what it was, blatantly ableist and macho; a pretentious, appropriation of something that was once something only women did and certainly didn’t boast about it or get the recognition that this American chef gets for it. She pointed out that the pasta machine was a tool and symbol of liberation for Italian women and that it continues to be just that. Just because you can roll pasta by hand, as is traditional in Emilia Romagna for a particular pasta shape, does not mean it is the “best” or only way that pasta should be made. The pasta machine means that people who have wrist or hand injuries, for example, or those who are time poor, or tired, or a million other reasons, can still produce delicious handmade pasta and for this, Carla was a staunch advocate and protector of her beloved pasta machine.

Here are just some of the things I’ve learned from the great Carla Tomasi that I think you will love too.

Some are just reminders of delicious food, others are the perfectly worded quip that she was so good at. I wanted to leave her voice in here as much as possible so have used quotes for her exact words:

• “If you are tired of tiramisu, you are tired of life.”

• “I am never without a tub (or 2 or even 3) of ricotta in the fridge. Fold ricotta into tomato sauce, use for fastest gnocchi ever, use x stuffing, pasta al forno, ravioli, frittate, frittelle (sweet and savoury), breakfast treat, add to pancake batter, savory and sweet tarts, calzoni, do I need to go on?”

• “I love uncomplicated food.”

• “Rescue some carrots from oblivion” by boiling with garlic and blending with cannellini, tahini, lemon juice, salt and olive oil. “whizz whizz, spread out, a bit more oil on top, scoop up with some toasted pane carasau. So frugally good.”

• “If the sauce does not make you squeal, do a Marcella. Butter is the answer.”

• “Seasonal words I love very much: Petrichor for the summer. Apricity for the winter.” [Petrichor is one of my favourite words too; here’s a little known fact for you that I don’t think many people realise. The word petrichor was invented in Canberra, my hometown, by two scientists at the CSIRO for a paper in 1964: Isabel (Joy) Bear and Richard Thomas. Joy passed away on 8 April 2021. She, too, was described by her peers as a pioneer, trailblazer and mentor; I think that Carla would have loved that.]

• “I never tire to make this very seasonal focaccia. Pears, walnuts, gorgonzola and sage.”

• Good potatoes only need to be “braised with just enough water to cover, a few cloves of garlic, oil, salt. Bliss. Stuffed into a piece of softened pane carasau and some tapenade; I am happy.”

• “Cucumbers, tomatoes and peaches. Absolute fave summer salad… I drench mine with a very sharp kefir, few drops of oil, salt, vinegar and dill. I wait all year for this, listening to the perpetual voice that tells me to eat the season (wherever you are). If you do not eat the season what is your palate longing for?”

• “French beans are called ‘fagiolini al burro’ in Rome ‘cause they are as soft as butter.”

• “Forget when Harry met Sally… it’s about when greens met garlic (and oil).”

• “To make a light, fluffy and creamy scrambled eggs add a good splash of cold water to the beaten eggs.”

• “Let’s go back to mid ‘80s and this was very popular at Frith’s with tagliatelle: Leeks. Pancetta. Oysters [mushrooms] and dry porcini mushrooms and a ‘bit’ of cream. I am tired and this took 10 minutes.”

But I think this next piece of advice is gold, pure gold, and this is why the voice of Carla Tomasi is one that will be so sorely missed. This is why the voices of older women need to be out there and listened to, because they have so much to share about their experience, all their wisdom and their sensibilities — and Carla was a sharer, she was open and generous with absolutely everything.

“I have made tons of mistakes in my life, will probably make some more, been too impulsive in my choices, I still wonder if I am with the right guy (yep but comfy with it), not afraid to own up and doubt myself… however I know to be 200% right to have taken care of this much unloved and neglected tiny piece of land that I now call my garden. We love each other to no end, I saved it and made it flourish and it saved me in my darkest times. Bit of a soppy story innit? We all need a faithful lover in our life.”

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If you take even one of these gems away with you, she will have touched you and you, too, will have a little bit of Carla inside of you. That’s her legacy.

Thank you for everything, Carla. You were gone too soon, we will miss you and the updates from your abundant, loving, cat-filled garden outside of Rome. Rest in peace, dear friend. xx