Anna Del Conte

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the cookery writer Annadel Conte. Her life, like her recipes, is a rich but healthy mix, rooted in the privileged pre-war traditions of a wealthy Milanese family. Yet it's the unexpected ingredients that bring real flavour. She's been machine-gunned and gone to prison twice. She describes spaghetti bolognese as American food, and despite being an inspirational figure to the likes of Nigella and Delia, has never had her own T V cookery show. She says I eat absolutely everything, from tripe to fish eyes and kids' head. But I'm not a gourmand. I think I am a gourmet.

Presenter1:16

Right, Annade El Conte, you have to define the difference, then, between Gourmand and Gourmet.

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The good marfa be somebody that is just greedy and would eat anything.

Presenter1:27

that is on its plate with a sort of abandon.

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That I I'm more choosy than that, and that to me is a gourmet aise. It's more choosy and it would

Presenter1:36

Eat with pleasure what is good.

Presenter1:39

One of the first things I understand that you cooked when you came to this country all those years ago was uh meatballs made out of horse flesh, is that right? Yes. Did you you serve them to guests, did you?

Anna Del Conte1:48

Did you

Presenter1:50

They didn't know? They didn't know. No, because if you mixed it with Bortadella or salame.

Presenter1:56

Which you could buy I mixed with egg and parmesan you could buy all that even if a lot of meat was still rationed.

Presenter2:03

And then you fry them and perhaps you put them in tomato sauce. So obviously nobody knew what sort of meat it was. I'm imagining they said to you, Oh, this is delicious, as you say, was rationing was was still the case. When they said it was delicious, did you enjoy the secret? Or did you did you want to tell them they were eating? No, I didn't. I'm afraid I'd never dare to tell them.

Anna Del Conte2:14

Okay.

Anna Del Conte2:20

No, I think

Presenter2:25

Yeah.

Presenter2:25

I don't think it ever knew that they were eating horse. How did your husband feel about eating horse meat? Did he? Oliva was very good. He ate anything. Yes, of course. As long as I was cooking it, he was very easy. No, he didn't feel at all no, of course not. And as I said in the introduction, you're pretty game. You'll eat most things, even though you it has to be good, the food that you're eating. Is is there anything about British cuisine that you simply won't try that you think is just too disgusting? Well, I tried everything.

Anna Del Conte2:30

Do you live?

Anna Del Conte2:45

Yeah, is

Anna Del Conte2:50

Disgusting.

Presenter2:52

What I don't like porridge is my fault, I just don't like it.

Presenter2:57

I don't think there is much of anything else that I positively dislike. Being a Scot, I have to ask you have you ever eaten haggis?

Presenter3:05

Yes, I have, and I like them. Oh, yes, but I like their offals, and even if they're mutton.

Presenter3:12

I I like them even more, as long as they're good. You like haggis? We're gonna get on very well if you like haggis. I I myself love haggis. Yeah. Well, do you know, tripe is the only thing I haven't tried. Oh, well, you should. Because I like offal, but I haven't tried tripe. It's the look of it. Oh, well it doesn't look of it.

Presenter3:28

Okay, I'll close my eyes and try it.

Presenter3:31

Now obviously I've invited you here today to hear your your desert island discs, but I'm wondering what your desert island dish might be if you had if you

Presenter3:42

I haven't thought of it. I'm going to ask you again at the end of the programme then. You haven't thought whether you go.

Anna Del Conte3:45

Programming.

Presenter3:48

I'm not a trick, I'm just wondering. Let's then go to the music. Tell me about your first track and why you've chosen it today. What are we going to hear now?

Anna Del Conte3:48

I'm not a trick, I'm just

Presenter3:57

Fabrico de Andre was a great singer, and he composed the music, he wrote his lyrics, he played classical guitar very well.

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and he sang. And he was uh compared to Bob Dylan and people say quite a lot of people say that if he were English he would have been far more famous than Bob Dylan.

Presenter4:19

And my children, my sons, which were in their early teenage then, they were always listening to either the Beatles or Fabrizio de Andre, and I was cooking at the sound of Fabrizio de Andre, which I loved too.

Anna Del Conte4:33

Laquía Maba no boca di rosa, mete valamura, mete valamura, Laquía mába no boca di rosa, mete valamore, so pranicosa. A pena cheza la stazione, del paezino di santilario, tutisa corce con unos guardo que nun sitratava dun missionario. Chequi la morre lo fapernoya, que se locella per profession, voca di rosa en el luno nel altro, la lo faceva per pasione.

Presenter4:58

That was Fabrizio de Andre and Boca de Rossa. I want to ask you about when you arrived in Britain. You were in your mid-twenties, around about 24, was it? I was 24.

Anna Del Conte5:06

I was twenty four.

Presenter5:07

You arrived at Vict was at Victoria Station? Yes, did the train from the continent arrive at Victoria Station. What were your very first impressions of Britain as you arrived? Can you remember?

Presenter5:17

No, frankly, no, because I was looking for my host, and I saw him, and he was a very typical British gentleman, I thought. He was wearing a a pinstripe blue suit with a bola hat. I'm so pleased.

Presenter5:34

Well, we are talking in nineteen forty nine, of course, yeah. And you you had arrived to be to to learn English as an au pair. As an au pair, all right. I was an au pair there and I was very lucky. It was a lovely family.

Anna Del Conte5:40

Pizza Pair, all right.

Presenter5:44

What did you make of the character of the English? I mean, I imagine and you say it was nineteen forty nine, and there's the gentleman meeting you with the pinstriped suit and the bowler hat on, and it's diff different character from the Italians. Well, you know that somehow it wasn't such a surprise.

Presenter6:00

I had a stiff upper lip.

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But I was expecting all that. It wasn't a surprise. There was a different thing, certainly, like uh sending their children to boarding school when they're the age of seven, which I couldn't

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possibly have done.

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or having, you know, children in the sitting only from five to six or whatever it was.

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There was a difference yet.

Presenter6:26

Somehow I didn't find it uh that it worried me in the least. Can you remember some of your early food experiences in England when you were I was very lucky. Right. Because Kitty Steve Hill, my hostess, was a quite a good cook and she managed

Anna Del Conte6:33

I was very lucky.

Presenter6:40

to do something miraculous with the food that England had in'forty nine'.

Presenter6:46

They had a very big vegetable garden, so that was all right. There was a fish manga, which was very good.

Presenter6:52

Well, the meat was scarce, but I mean, it didn't matter. There was rabbits, and we ate rabbits. What about your beloved olive oil? Were you able to get hold of that? No, I don't think there was olive oil. There was salad cream. No.

Anna Del Conte7:00

Yeah.

Presenter7:04

That wasn't only for it.

Presenter7:06

I'm sorry. What did your dutifully educated palate make of salad cream? Oh, I didn't like it, I mean. But I prefer it to have it with my salad than just plain. I can't bear plain salad.

Anna Del Conte7:12

Private.

Presenter7:19

And you had come to Britain uh to learn English, yes, to to work with this and live with this family and to be their au pair. Uh did you have

Presenter7:26

Did you imagine that you might make your life in Britain, or did you know?

Anna Del Conte7:29

Do you know?

Anna Del Conte7:31

No, I

Presenter7:34

At the beginning. Right. Absolutely never.

Presenter7:38

We will find out, of course, that it was love that anchored you to Britain, but more of that in just a moment. For now, let's hear about your second piece of music, Annadel Conte. What are we going to listen to now?

Presenter7:46

We are going to listen to an overture of the third act of Traviata, Verde's Traviata.

Presenter7:53

And why have you chosen this particular? Because to start off, it reminds me.

Presenter7:59

Oh, my poor mother. At uh a performance of La Traviata at La Scala, we had a box which was straight above the timpani and the drum and so on, and she had some chocolate on the parapet, and somehow she must have moved them. And they all went ding tom boom, ding tom boom on the timpani and the drum. And Toscanini looked up.

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at her for what she said was an eternity.

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And a message came back from the maestro, through mutual friend, that the maestro would be very appreciative if Signora del Conte would desist to make her contribution to a musical soiree.

Presenter8:40

And then it would remind me of a lot of evening during the last year of the war which were not very funny, and we were all blacked in in the house from the winter was terrible, and there was nothing to do but to listen to opera, and my father loved Traviata and Inniverdi.

Presenter9:00

and to hoggle around the radio.

Presenter9:03

to listen to the B B C, which was the only news we could have, because all the other news were obviously censored and we only heard what the fascists want us to hear.

Presenter10:12

That was the overture to the third act of Verdi's La Traviata, played by the orchestra of La Scala Milan, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. That was a a nineteen fifty one performance there, Anna del Conte. And you met Toscanini later, is that right? Yes.

Anna Del Conte10:25

Yeah.

Presenter10:26

I mean, meat is the wrong word. I just saw I mean, I just saw him and he said Kebela Bambina, what are pretty girls? But that was all.

Anna Del Conte10:28

I just

Presenter10:34

That's pretty good. Better than most of us get. Um tell us then about this this family of yours. You were living in uh Milan. W what was your was your father in business? What what did he do? What was his job? My father was a stockbroker, came from a quite a bourgeois family.

Anna Del Conte10:39

People

Anna Del Conte10:44

Do I father

Presenter10:49

And so did my mother, who came from, well, a more aristocratic background. What was your mother like?

Presenter10:55

My mother she was quite beautiful, in fact.

Anna Del Conte10:56

Choose my

Presenter10:59

She was not I can't explain she was not exceptionally warm to us, but she was a very good mother, in spite of not being warm. She loved us, she'd cuddle us, but at the same time there was a certain coolness in her. Was she afraid slightly of spoiling you or making you Oh, certainly she was afraid of making me vain. She never said how good I was, how pretty I was, how intelligent I was, nothing.

Anna Del Conte11:15

Oh, subtle she won.

Presenter11:26

My generation were never praised.

Presenter11:29

Just in case we should become vain, and vain was the worst sin that you could possibly commit. What about you with your children then? Well, that's what I was going to say. Even I, far less than my daughter. My daughter keeps on saying how beautiful they are, how clever they are. Fine, I agree. I would agree. But there are limits. They can't all be beautiful and clever.

Anna Del Conte11:36

Well

Presenter11:50

And was your mother a cook? Oh, yes, a very good cook. We had a cook, which was Maria, which was my great friend. But my mother was in charge and she did quite a lot. And d d don't forget that the Italian do not like novelties in their food. They like the same thing made better and better, you know, the same old ragu, Bologna's sauce, and make it better and better. Since you mentioned bolognese, let's just take a minute to talk about it. There is huge controversy in Britain about what goes into a proper uh bolognese sauce. What would you put in yours? Well, I certainly would put beef. Maybe I put a little pork with it and certainly oil and butter to start off in a sofritto, which is the fried mixture of onion and celery and garlic. And then you mix it and then you add uh the meat and then you add wine, a little bit of stock or milk, and then you add your squeeze tomato squeeze or puree and the puree. Or you add your tin of chopped tomatoes.

Anna Del Conte12:44

Yeah.

Presenter12:49

And whatever you do, you don't you don't serve it with spaghetti. No, that's ridiculous. What do you serve it with? We have it. Well, traditionally it was born in Bologna and they added it taglia tella. Right. Or with pene, but not with spaghetti. They're the wrong shape. I have learned my lesson. Tell me about Maria, your family cook then. Did you did you sit up on the worktop as as Maria was cooking and and watching? Yes, she was obviously.

Anna Del Conte12:53

No.

Anna Del Conte12:54

Yeah.

Speaker 312:54

Uh

Anna Del Conte12:55

We have

Anna Del Conte13:13

I think yes.

Presenter13:15

Very nice person to children. Both my older brother and I loved her, adored her, in fact. Did Maria sing was it communist songs? Yes, I still remember. I knew Avandia Popola La Riskosa, Kamica Rossa, Kamica Rossa, Red uh shirt, red shirt. I knew it from her.

Anna Del Conte13:24

Yes, I

Presenter13:34

And that was I must have been tenish, sort of. Did your did your mother know she was teaching you this? She knew that we knew that we shouldn't talk about it.

Anna Del Conte13:39

Yeah.

Speaker 313:39

Yeah.

Anna Del Conte13:40

Yeah.

Presenter13:43

Tell me about your next piece of music, then not a not a Communist song. What are we going to hear? Going to hear not at all a Communist centre, Bukerini Minuet. Why have you chosen this? Because oh, because it will bring me to another island an island full of people and chatter.

Anna Del Conte13:47

Okay.

Presenter13:59

And that is Venice, which I adore. In the background in Venice, when you walk, there is always Buccarini or Vivaldi.

Presenter15:06

Boccarini's minuet from the String Quintet in E, played by E. Muzici. So, Annadel Conte, you've said that as a child you were a bit of a fussy eater, but the things that you did like included truffles, brains, sweetbreads, squid, and octopus. Now, that is awe-inspiring, a jaw-dropping list for those of us as parents who struggle just to get our children to eat broccoli. You were clearly very adventurous from a young age. No, I don't think I was adventurous, I just liked it. But quite a sensual, quite a big taste for a taste. It's a strawberry for a child, that I agree. But as far as the other ones, certainly not Ockfold thing. Perfectly all right. Tender and soft brains and the sweet bread and a lovely, delicate flavour.

Anna Del Conte15:29

Uh you were clear We've had a

Speaker 215:30

Uh

Anna Del Conte15:30

It fits

Speaker 215:30

Should have

Anna Del Conte15:31

Death.

Speaker 215:31

Yeah.

Anna Del Conte15:31

Yeah.

Speaker 215:31

Yeah.

Anna Del Conte15:32

Never mind.

Anna Del Conte15:36

Yes, it's a strawberry for a child. I agree.

Presenter15:49

And what about uh shopping for food in Milan?'Cause even now, if you buy a slice of ham in Italy, somebody'll tie a bow around it. I mean, the whole thing is a is a is a real theatrical, beautiful experience. What are your memories as a small child?

Presenter16:01

I went shopping very often with my mother.

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We lived in a

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The smart part of Milan.

Presenter16:07

And uh we went in Vienna Monte Napoleone, which is now full of uh Prada and Armani, but at the time it was the Becca.

Presenter16:17

The salumeria, the delicates, and the butcher and all those. This rather idyllic sounding life then came to an abrupt end because when you were fifteen years old war broke out. You you ended up having to flee to the hills. Tell me what happened. Tell me more about that. Well, the star we entered the war in in nineteen forty and for two years it was all right. Then the bombing started much, much heavier. So everybody was leaving the city and we went to this place near Parma.

Anna Del Conte16:30

Yeah.

Presenter16:46

And uh in the hill and uh we were there for the last two years. Tell me about the time then that the m the path in front of you was machine gunned. What ha what happened?

Presenter16:57

How did it happen?

Presenter16:58

Nothing could move on the road, apart from military truck and uh jeeps and things like that. We were on the bicycle, but there was a a donkey's pulled cart in front of us. So I was bicycling away and with my friends and the aeroplane came down and thank goodness I threw myself in the ditch and so did my friends.

Presenter17:19

Because the donkey, which was only five meters in front of us, was killed. And w obviously I was still here. Yes, terrifying though. Were you terrified at the time or did you have this sort of innocent? Right. You just time to think that

Anna Del Conte17:30

Whenever you have

Presenter17:34

To save yourself.

Presenter17:36

Those years then, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen mostly tho those are the years, of course, when people start to have the fun in their life. They start to dress up, they go out to dances, they're listening to music.

Speaker 317:43

To dress up, they go out to dances, they're listening to music.

Presenter17:46

Yeah, nothing about that. No, absolutely nothing. There were also very few men around.

Anna Del Conte17:48

Yeah.

Presenter17:52

Apart from the fascisms of Germans. No. Carefree days I didn't have. Did you resent that at the time?

Presenter17:59

Did you know? No, you couldn't. They both are war, and you had only one thing in mind to.

Anna Del Conte17:59

Did you know you were missing it? No.

Presenter18:05

To get on with it.

Presenter18:08

Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear now?

Presenter18:11

Well, now we are going to hear Chartrenet Curistile de Nosamour. All through the war Mussolini didn't allow us to hear any American, English, French music.

Presenter18:23

So suddenly, when the war was over, we discovered

Presenter18:26

the Bincross, Bishardrinet, Louis Armstrong, and the Laficero all these people.

Presenter18:31

So Chartrené was one of my favourite and I think I would like to hear it on your island.

Speaker 218:38

Study

Speaker 218:40

Dunno Zamu.

Speaker 218:42

Girl has to deal.

Speaker 218:44

Decibojou.

Speaker 218:46

In a photo.

Speaker 218:48

Pierre you for too.

Speaker 218:50

The Marverness

Speaker 218:54

Course to deal, debilitude.

Speaker 219:00

The rendezvous

Speaker 219:02

As to the D

Speaker 219:05

Important

Speaker 219:07

Son c'est.

Presenter19:09

That was Charles Renee and Cares d'Etile de Nosamour, What remains of our love. So, Anna del Conte, I did of course say in the introduction that you went to prison, and I haven't yet asked you about your time in jail. What happened? Well, perhaps I should say that I was arrested. In prison, I was only

Anna Del Conte19:22

Right.

Presenter19:24

Well, once I presume four or five hours each time. Okay. Uh the first time was rather unpleasant because I was bicycling very late, just before the curfew.

Presenter19:34

So they brought me in the I was in the Nasi Commissario, chief of police. Very unpleasant. And he ate all my salame. My salame.

Presenter19:44

I wanted to say a bit about

Presenter19:45

Well, not unpleasant.

Presenter19:48

And then the second time was when the family I was with was arrested because of the husband of the father was obviously in the blacklist of the fascists. While my father and I were left out after four or five hours when they saw that there was nothing to do with us. By then it was become it had become very difficult life, frankly. What do you think your parents wanted for you then as a young teenage girl embarking on on your own life, making your own decisions?

Presenter20:17

Oh, to marry to marry a rich man and be happy ever after

Presenter20:21

The lot of children, which

Presenter20:23

Well, I presume I did partly, but not totally. Yes, you said to marry a rich man. You didn't say to marry an Italian man. Did th w tell me about that? Well, I presume they they thought that I would marry an Italian man because it was the normal thing to do.

Anna Del Conte20:32

Yeah, that's

Presenter20:38

It just happened that I didn't. Tell me about how you met Oliver. When did you. Oh, it was a very unorthodox meeting. We met.

Presenter20:46

outside Westminster Abbey and Oliver was going

Presenter20:50

Home of this parent lives behind the abbey.

Presenter20:53

And we met and our eyes crossed and looked food. So he followed me. And then eventually, in the cloister, he approached me and he said

Presenter21:04

What a beautiful place And I burst out laughing because I thought after having followed me for five minutes he could have come out with a less banal opening and then we start talking and that's it and on on and on. And I asked do you know any Italian? and he said only la cidarem la mano, which is that wonderful piece of uh the duet between

Presenter21:28

Don Giovanni and Zerdlina.

Presenter21:31

And I would take that.

Presenter21:33

You describe it as a coup de foudre. You already knew you were in love with him, did you? You knew that he was. Yes, I presume so. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I was there new or.

Presenter21:41

I knew I knew I liked him. Let's hear your piece of music then. You've told us a little bit about it. But uh is this really for Oliver this next piece of music? Yes, it will remind me of our first meeting and how funny it was.

Anna Del Conte21:48

Yeah.

Speaker 321:49

Uh

Speaker 321:54

Om yo medor lezen.

Speaker 322:34

You are in God.

Speaker 322:37

Pay your peace for the Lord.

Anna Del Conte22:40

Oh yeah.

Presenter22:45

That was Teresa Barganza and Rogero Raimondi and La Cidariem Lamano. There you will give me your hand from Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Lauren Moselle, and that was for your husband, The Memory of Meeting Oliver. You had this very long and enduring relationship. I I was very surprised in reading some of what you've written.

Anna Del Conte23:04

Yeah.

Presenter23:04

That it it wasn't always a smooth relationship, Annadel Conte. You did throughout your marriage have was it more than one affair, or you?

Presenter23:12

Fifty five, seven, six, whatever they were years is a long time. A long time. I don't know if if it ever was is a a marriage that can be smooth of that length, but I mean I I was very happy.

Speaker 323:24

I was ready

Anna Del Conte23:24

Yeah.

Presenter23:25

Yeah.

Speaker 323:25

Yeah.

Presenter23:27

But both of you managed to endure the these rocky patches. So loyalty was the most important thing in your sharing the family and I think it was our generation. It wasn't just me personally or him personally. It was our generation that we wouldn't

Anna Del Conte23:33

Yeah.

Anna Del Conte23:35

Yeah, but I think it's

Anna Del Conte23:38

Yeah.

Presenter23:44

We will think twice before sacrificing the family.

Presenter23:47

And uh throughout uh your long marriage, he was your chief taster then? Oliver was the one, was he? He always would taste dishes. He was a very good taster because he was he had a very

Anna Del Conte23:52

Was he who always would taste the dishes?

Presenter23:56

British palate, and yet he enjoyed good food. He would tell me what I would expect my reader would feel.

Presenter24:03

What do you make of the incredible journey that we have made with food over these last few decades? A journey that you and people like Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson were at the centre of, of helping people to understand that food is not just a duty, it's not just fuel, but there is great joy in it and it is something that round the table thing with the people you love is a great uniting force. When I came to this country.

Presenter24:29

You didn't discuss food.

Presenter24:32

Food was something that you ate, and you never talked about food. I remember we went to Italy once with my husband. We went down to the Riviera and he was amazed because what we did when we were having lunch was thinking where we would have dinner.

Presenter24:48

I'd only know one thing.

Presenter24:50

That is, now the food in this country is far better, even than the eighties.

Presenter24:56

Far better. There is better food around. And of course you have played your part in that. I wonder if you started off with a sort of missionary zeal. Did you think, yes, I'm going to convince them that actually there's a lot more to pasta than spaghetti hoops? I'm not the missionary type.

Anna Del Conte25:06

I think there's a lot more to pasta than spaghetti hoops.

Presenter25:10

I started off uh

Presenter25:13

Well, you now that you put it, why should I have started off otherwise? My brothers and a friend of mine said, Why don't you write a book about pasta? Not going to be a recipe, you've got to write a book on pasta altogether. The shapes, the history, everything that you could find. So it was wonderful because I I had to research. It was nineteen seventy six and the book was Portrait of Pasta. What did people think of it? Were people thinking about it? Oh, it was quite successful, I think. I'm sorry, but I

Anna Del Conte25:38

Yeah.

Presenter25:40

You wouldn't be here if it hadn't been, let's be honest. Let's have some more music then, Anna. What are we going to hear now? We're on disc number six. Now we are going to r to listen to Bing Crosby, because that's another one that we could listen after the war at last.

Anna Del Conte25:42

That's the honest.

Speaker 325:53

I never realized

Speaker 325:58

That such a thing could be

Speaker 326:03

But when you went away, dear, then I was sad because

Speaker 326:13

I never re-a lie.

Speaker 326:17

What a fool are.

Presenter26:20

Uh

Speaker 326:20

What

Presenter26:20

Uh

Presenter26:23

That was Bing Crosbie, and I never realized. So, Annadel Conte, you've written a series of very well received books over the last, what, thirty odd years, and yet, like many of your contemporaries, you have not been on our television screens. Why not?

Presenter26:38

Well, I was tested, I think. First it was a long time ago, and I failed it. Well I was not well, I failed it, I wasn't good enough.

Anna Del Conte26:43

And I was not.

Presenter26:47

I don't know what happened, but I certainly are not good on the box.

Presenter26:51

I come out as a cold, distant person. Didn't work. No. That's a curious thing, isn't it? Because your writing is so warm. I mean, when I'm reading your writing about food, I can almost smell the food coming off the page. You know, you write in such a rich style, but you weren't able to translate this. No. Into my camera. Do you regret that? Because obviously, of course, we all know that. Yes, sorry. Of course I do. I would be rich by now.

Anna Del Conte27:09

But

Anna Del Conte27:10

Listen.

Anna Del Conte27:13

Yes.

Speaker 327:15

Yeah.

Presenter27:18

And what about inspiring the likes of Delia and uh Nigela? Do do they phone you up and ask you for tips for recipes? They say I've you know, I've tried this dish and it's not going right, Anna? Well, Delia had a sort of uh rapport because I wrote a lot for her magazine. I saw a lot of her and then I did organize some dinner for her.

Presenter27:38

It was a lovely time when we I went to Italy and, uh

Presenter27:41

did article on the various regions of Italy, which I enjoyed very much, and we had dinner there. Now Jella was just, I think, partly because she came to early arri, very early on when she was not yet writing about but she was, I think,

Presenter27:57

Writing in work. Yeah, she was a food economist in Verger. That's right. And she came to one of my demonstrations and.

Anna Del Conte28:00

That's right.

Presenter28:04

She came and said I'm Najella Lawson.

Presenter28:08

Well, she was such a lovely girl that I like her from that. What did your mother make of your career? Because, um, all you know, bearing in mind that you had a a cook at home to do the day-to-day cooking, and bear in mind that you say her hope for her, as many women of her generation, was that you would marry a rich man and have your family. Did did she like the fact that you had a career, and did she think it was a good career?

Presenter28:30

I know from my younger brother that she was very proud of me. She told all her friends of my success in Salmon, but she never told me.

Presenter28:38

They never say well done for all your book and so on. Never.

Presenter28:42

Because again, it goes back to you never praise your children.

Presenter28:47

Even I was by then forty odd and still I was her child. Does that bother you that she never said well done?

Presenter28:56

Yes. Mm. Yes, to be honest.

Presenter29:00

But that is the inner.

Presenter29:02

Company, happen.

Presenter29:04

Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear now at this number seven, Anna? Number seven is the uh Adado from Haydn Spring Quartet. It was the chosen piece of music that Oliver had at his funeral. He prepared all his music, all the reading and everything. It was a beautiful spring day.

Presenter29:25

And we had a lovely party, what do you call it, a wake?

Presenter29:29

and that was played in that beautiful church where he was buried.

Presenter29:33

In von Belbankner, in Dorset, where we were liv I was living, I'm living now.

Presenter30:29

That was the Amadeus string quartet, playing the adagio from Haydn's String Quartet No. two in C major. So, Annadel Conte, you are the mother of three children, and you live close to one of them. You live close to your daughter. Yes, to Julia. How does that arrangement suit you?

Presenter30:44

Oh, that suits me very well. You must ask her if she suits her as well.

Anna Del Conte30:47

Huh.

Presenter30:49

But uh it suits me very well because I got the children coming in and out. It's rather lovely. It's not that that is no more

Presenter30:55

Uh, loneliness. Yes. Your husband Oliver died in in two thousand and seven and and I wonder if you feel yourself um sort of pulled back to Italy at all by the fact that you you know you don't have that anchor here now. Oliver is no longer here.

Anna Del Conte30:56

Yeah.

Presenter31:09

No. I mean, I've always been a person that had two anchors. Right. One was Italy and the other was on England. I never felt at home in either country any more. When I'm in one country, I think I sh oh. I would rather be in the other one and vice versa, but I become a hybrid. You've also said that much of life now is about the three S's, silence, solitude, and now I'm going to make a muck-up of pronouncing this Stanketsa. Well done. Right. Stanketsa means what? It means tiredness. In fact, I do find that because of uh working I don't feel that too much. I think stanketsa is a feeling of uh not particularly being very interesting in going on. Right, it's a weariness with the idea of life itself. And and so work helps to stave that off, does it? Work yes, work gives me that sort of uh sprint to be here again.

Anna Del Conte31:52

And

Anna Del Conte31:54

Yeah.

Presenter31:59

And tell me then, I don't know if you've had time amidst all our chat and the music to think about a desert island dish, but if if there was just one one meal that you could take with you, could you can you think what that might be?

Anna Del Conte32:06

One

Anna Del Conte32:08

But you could take with

Presenter32:12

It seems very banal and san, but I would have to have pasta. Which one of all the hundreds? Oh, I would have spaghetti al pomodoro. Just tomato sauce on right. Good tomato sauce, and and that's it.

Anna Del Conte32:21

Okay, okay.

Presenter32:25

Let's have your final piece of music. What are you going to choose? Love Duet in the first act of Otello, sung by Placido Domingo, please. And why have you chosen this particular piece of music? Because Otello is, I think, to me the perfect opera. And Domingo is the perfect Otello. Is it true, Annadel Conte, that you'd quite like to see Placido Domingo washed up on the shores of your island? Yes, after the a storm, and he will burst out in his magnificent exultate, which is an extraordinary piece of music. What a thought. Let's hear him now.

Speaker 333:28

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 333:39

Response of the wave.

Presenter33:57

Part of the love duet from the first act of Verdi's Otello with Placido Domingo and Mirella Freni with the opera of La Scala Milan conducted by Carlos Kleiber. So, Annadell Conte, we come to the moment then where it's all about the books and the luxuries. I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you may take one other book. What's it going to be? Well, I've thought for a long time, because when I first met Roy Plumley, he asked me that. I met him years and years ago, and I say I was a fan of his programme. This was at a party you met? Yes. And I said, Divina com mad, yeah.

Speaker 334:25

Uh

Anna Del Conte34:25

Yes.

Presenter34:28

Dante.

Presenter34:29

Because I never read it all properly and I would try to understand it all. But now I'm edified, I can't be bothered to understand it, I will not take Dante. I will take instead Ilgatoparto, the Leopard, by Tommasi di Lampedusa, so that I will dream of being on another island, far more civilized than the desert one on in Sicily. Good idea. It's yours. And a luxury, of course. Poppy, my dog.

Anna Del Conte34:53

Yeah.

Presenter34:56

No, not allowed. Ah, I thought that. I'm sorry. Then a a perennial supply of extra virgin olive oil so that I could eat the roots, vegetables that I can find. I can even dress my fish if I can catch'em. It is yours, the extra virgin olive oil. And if I were to ask you to pick just one, I think it would be a good idea. Okay. Your tele is yours then. Anna del Conte, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much, Rolask.

Speaker 335:17

But he gave this

Presenter36:13

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