Posted by Acclaimed chef and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich is celebrating her 25th anniversary on PBS this year, and from the beginning, her shows have been celebrations of food and family. That focus stems from her past, during which she, her brother and their parents escaped from communist Yugoslavia into Italy, forced to leave behind the grandmother who taught Lidia to cook. The family spent two years in a refugee camp, and eventually immigrated to the United States with help from Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities.
Lidia has faced her share of triumphs and struggles, but she was able to deal with them with the help of her faith, the support of her loved ones, and the kindness of strangers. She joined me recently on “Christopher Closeup” (podcast below) to discuss the details of her life and her anniversary on television, highlighted by the special “Life with Lidia,” which premieres on Dec. 18th.
If you’ve tuned in to any of Lidia’s cooking series, the latest of which is “Lidia’s Kitchen,” you’ll know they are multi-generational affairs. Her grandchildren were always a presence, and still remain so today. In addition, her mother Erminia, who passed away at age 100 in 2021, also frequently joined Lidia in the kitchen. And though she is not physically present on the program anymore, audio of Erminia and Lidia singing together continues to be a staple of each episode.
Keeping her mom involved with the show in her senior years was important to Lidia. She said, “I think that in today’s world, the grandma generation is kind of left behind, and it’s such a loss for the next generation, the children, because grandparents have unconditional love. They don’t question. They just give, and they have life experience to share. So I feel very strongly about – for a while there, we were four generations – being together. It brings strength to everybody in the family.”
Those bonds of family were forged early for Lidia. The section of Italy in which she was born was given to communist Yugoslavia after World War II. As a result, both the practice of the Catholic faith and private enterprise were both outlawed. Still, Lidia spent her formative years – from birth to age 10 – around her grandmother, Nonna Rosa.
Lidia recalled, “Being under communism was difficult…because we couldn’t be Italian, we couldn’t go to church. And my mother – we lived in a big city, but she put my brother and I with grandma out in the country. It was this wonderful setting of nature. We fed the animals, we milked the goats…I would get involved in the garden, go get the peas, go get the potatoes. We had olive trees. In November, we’d harvest the olives, make the olive oil. Grandpa would make the wine…And the love was unconditional. Yes, I had to help [Grandma]…I would run around with the hose to wet the garden, to collect the potatoes. But…it was such a great period of learning, of forming who I am as a person, in appreciation of the gifts of nature, in appreciation of God. Because under communism, we couldn’t go to church. But grandma would say prayers at night with me. And so I felt connected to some extent, to my faith, even though it was forbidden.”
During those early days, Lidia also witnessed the selflessness of her mother. Erminia worked as a teacher, and she would go out of her way to help students with special needs and those who had to work out in the fields. Her actions taught Lidia the importance of helping those in need. Soon, however, it would be Lidia’s family who were the ones in need.
Because her father owned a truck and ran something of a private business, he was arrested and held for weeks by communist authorities. When he was finally released, the family knew it was time to escape from their native region. Lidia, her brother, and mother made it to Italy under the pretense of visiting a relative, while her father had to escape through the woods in an attempt to cross the border. In his pocket, he carried a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that his mother had given him before she died. He had a harrowing journey, but eventually arrived safely.
Lidia’s family soon joined the many other refugees in Italy, looking to build a new life somewhere else. The situation was difficult, but they made the best of it. Lidia was even able to attend a school run by the Canossian Sisters. She recalled, “That was kind of my reentry into Catholicism…I felt revived and freed….They took me in, taught me, but I also got a chance to work with them. They put me in the kitchen with the other nuns. I would help peel potatoes and whatever. I guess they saw this element in me that food was my way of communicating, if you will. So, it was in those two years that I got back into understanding the Catholic religion and the whole gospel.”
Catholic Relief Services helped Lidia’s family in the camp, while Catholic Charities and the Red Cross brought them to the United States. Lidia said, “Learning the new language was the most important thing for us, and so we did. Catholic Charities set us up in an apartment. They helped us furnish the apartment, and then the neighborhood people got involved. The people that were of Italian descent, part of the Catholic community, they would bring food, they would bring everything that a new family would need. We were amazed that after being forbidden to do many, many human things…[we were able] to be free, to be open, to go to church, to speak Italian, and to ultimately become part of this wonderful America.”
Lidia’s gratitude toward the U.S. led to a series of PBS specials many years later. The series is called “Lidia Celebrates America,” and one of its episodes – “Overcoming the Odds” – earned a Christopher Award in 2022.
Lidia explained that she wanted to highlight the opportunities that the U.S. offers from an immigrant’s point of view, how she was given the opportunity to start a new life, get an education, and pursue her dreams of becoming a chef and restaurateur. “The last one that I did,” she said, “was about different refugees, like me, from Nepal, from Vietnam, from Palestine. How these people, as refugees, made their life in America. I wanted to show how these people really appreciate America, the opportunity, and how they’ve made a full life, a family. They’re workers, they’re contributors to America, and they are successes in their own right.”
Two of the highlights of Lidia’s career are when she was asked to cook for Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis during their respective stays in New York. During U.S. visits, the popes stay in the papal nuncio’s residence in Manhattan. The person cooking for them must move into the mission, in a sense, to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the pontiff. It was an honor Lidia and her team happily accepted when it was offered, due largely to her culinary skills and involvement with charities, such as Jesuit Refugee Services.
During Pope Francis’s visit, he surprised Lidia and her team one day. She recalled, “After lunch, the staff was sitting around the table downstairs in the kitchen having coffee. There was a long hallway from the stairs coming down into the kitchen, and [we saw] this white thing was floating down the hallway. And here [Pope Francis] was. We were all seated. We jumped up and he said [in Italian], ‘May I have a coffee with you?’ Of course, we made coffee, and he stayed for 15 minutes. He talked to us, blessed everybody. Then he went into his pocket, gave a blessed rosary to each one of us, and ultimately he left by asking us to pray for him as well. Let me tell you, after 15 minutes, the Secret Service came running down the stairs. He’s known to evade them sometimes, but they found him…I think that’s the grandeur of Pope Francis and people of that stature. One would think, even for me cooking, you would think that these people are on another sort of strata than you are. But at the end, you find out that they’re human beings, just like us. They just have a special mission in life.”
Lidia continues with her own mission of showing people that cooking can be easy, fun, and provide bonding moments for the family. Her new season of “Lidia’s Kitchen” is filled with recipes from her latest cookbook, entitled “Lidia’s From Our Family Table to Yours: More Than 100 Recipes Made with Love for All Occasions,” written with her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali. It features four generations of her family’s favorite recipes, ranging from traditional Italian fare to more contemporary offerings embraced by her grandchildren.
Lidia also continues to rely on her faith to get her through life’s highs and lows. She concluded, “I have my prayers, whether it’s at night or the rosary, but I talk to God. So whenever I’m in a situation [that’s] beautiful…I thank God for giving me this opportunity, for whatever I see, whatever music I hear, whatever food. I just talk to Him and thank Him like I would talk to you. And when in difficulties, I talk to Him: please get me through…and get me where you want me to be…So, I do a lot of talking to God.”
(To listen to my full interview with Lidia Bastianich, click on the podcast link):
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