First I eat the fat: the food life of a little Italian girl

Learning to cook (and unlearn perfection) at the family table.

My daughter Livia is five, and feeding her has become one of the most unexpected and humbling culinary adventures of my life.

Whenever I give Livia a slice of prosciutto—the excellent kind we buy from our local butcher—she tears off the fat and starts devouring it from there, always declaring with pride: “First, I eat the fat. I love it.” — She is my daughter.

There are days when dinner consists of store bought spinach spaetzle with a shower of grated Parmigiano, or frozen pizza rossa–just tomato, no cheese. Other days are more chaotic: “choose-your-leftover” dinners, especially after cooking classes, when the fridge is bursting with remnants of past meals. And then there are better days, when dinner begins with crisp slices of raw fennel, followed by fusilli al pomodoro and a frittatina—a fluffy omelet made with our fresh eggs.

Cooking for Livia rarely involves actual cooking. It’s more like assembling ingredients she already loves. I know she will grow up and her tastes will change—or maybe not—but I do miss experimenting for her and with her.

The truth is, eating is not her favourite thing. She’s five, after all. There are too many far more exciting things to do: jumping from the sofa, dressing up as Elsa, screaming “boo!” at the top of her lungs, playing hide and seek, sticking stickers, or watching Snoopy on TV.

At school, though, she has a wonderfully varied and healthy diet. They cook fresh meals every day in the school cafeteria (mensa, as we call it in Italy), using local and organic ingredients. Even though her favorite dish is always pasta al pomodoro, the menu includes everything from octopus salad to vegetable soups, beans, seasonal salads, cous cous, panzanella, and pizza. Knowing she eats well with her classmates—the magic of eating among peers!—reassures me when she skips most of her dinner at home because “white pasta is not white enough,” or “broccoli is too mushy,” or “the chicken cutlet is too thick.”

When I started weaning her, I felt invincible. I served her pureed fava beans and bitter greens, made tomato and ricotta sauce, pasta with broccoli, and she opened her mouth like a hungry baby bird. I was convinced she had inherited my sense of food adventure. I felt proud, accomplished, like I was ticking all the boxes of a good mother.

But that phase passed, as it happens for most of the kids of her age. She grew cautious around new textures, wary of unfamiliar flavours. I would make fish patties from scratch, cook beans, dress pasta with our homemade pesto... and she would end up having dinner with strawberries. I felt like a failure, as if I couldn’t even feed my own daughter.

In retrospect, I was putting too much pressure on our shared meals. They had become a performance–mine and hers–, instead of a moment of connection.

Years before having Livia, I read First Bite by Bee Wilson, a book I loved for its exploration of how we learn to eat—through family, culture, and memory. But once I was personally involved in the feeding of a tiny human being, I forgot everything. All the science, all the cultural context.

I had to start again. I simplified our meals, and focused on preparing just one dinner for the three of us—no more separate menus, no negotiations. But I made sure that every meal included at least one thing Livia liked. If not the vegetable flan, then some crunchy cucumber sticks. If not the squash soup, at least the croutons scattered on top.

I also began to see how powerful it is to model the way I hope she’ll eat: with curiosity, without fear, and without guilt. We eat plenty of vegetables, good food, and the occasional sweet treat. We talk about what we like, what we don’t, and we try things more than once.

If she sees me happily devouring my minestrone—especially if it has a Parmigiano rind melted in—she might eventually try it. Maybe she’ll love it. Maybe she’ll just tolerate it. Or maybe she won’t touch it for years.

But I’ve come to understand that exposure, familiarity, and time are much more powerful than pressure. She doesn’t need to finish the plate. She just needs to be part of the table.

Also, I had to let go of the self-imposed rules: frozen veggies are fine. Pizza from the freezer is dinner. She doesn’t need a perfectly balanced plate every single night.

I know these are first-world problems. I’m not struggling to put food on the table—but rather, to find a rhythm, a balance, that works for us as a family. I was sure that I—food writer, recipe developer, cooking class teacher—would have a wonderfully relaxed relationship with family meals. That I could feed Livia without the burden of expectations.

I was wrong.

And it took me almost five years to get here.

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