Lucy Dearlove: This is Lecker.

I'm Lucy Dearlove.

This month I'm releasing a very small series about contemporary

personal and memoir writing within the loose parameters of

food. In the previous episode with Rebecca Johnson and Angela

Hui, Rebecca talked about the limitations of categorizing

writing as 'food writing'. For - among many reasons - it can feel

diminutive. The book I'm talking about in this episode, I think,

is a great example of why genre categorisation of any kind - but

particularly within personal writing - can be at best

limiting and at worst pointless

Thea Lenarduzzi: Elderly women...women generally

food...migrants...weeds...these are all things that have

generally been overlooked or not considered worthy of scrutiny.

You know, how many books are there about great men who did

great things and how many other about a grandmother who no one's

ever heard of?

Lucy Dearlove: This is Thea Lenarduzzi, whose book

Dandelions came out last month. Dandelions is not really a food

book - if we're going to lean into the categorisation - but

food is a central theme within it. The book follows the history

of Thea's family and their movement and migration between

England and Italy over the past decades and generations. At the

heart is Thea's nonna Dirce with her stories weaving the fabric

of Thea's childhood and family life. The dandelions of the

title appear throughout the book as a recurring motif, most

frequently on the table at family meals. We first meet

Dirce on the first page of the book, picking dandelion leaves

at the side of the road in 1950s Manchester and stuffing them

into a bag to take home and cook and eat. Thea describes those

around looking askance at her, wondering what on earth she's

doing with those weeds.

So much of personal writing in food focuses on heritage and

family - and understandably so. But down no doubt to the very

white middle class status quo, there can be a tendency towards

simplification: of dishes or even a narrative, a family's

history. What Dandelions does so effectively is capture how much

of people's lives rests in the spaces in between; resisting

categorisation and definition, and even slipping between fact

and fiction. But in a way that remains always true and always

significant. Even in the so called mundanity of everyday

life.

To begin, I asked Thea - having in mind this heritage of her

family's movement between England and Italy - to talk

about her own relationship with food and with cooking.

Thea Lenarduzzi: I suppose if I tell you about the first thing

that I ever learned to cook, it sort of sums up my life. So

under supervision, I was probably about 10. And it was a

tomato sauce for pasta. But ironically, seeing as I was born

and raised living at the time in Italy, I followed a recipe

in...it was in one of my mom's old English cookbooks from like

the 1970s. So that kind of weird Italian English hybrid started

started pretty early on and I'd love to say that it was a

cookbook you know, that was by someone fully vetted or you

know, respected like the silver spoon or Elizabeth David but I

mean, I think it was probably one that came through with, like

the Reader's Digest or something. My my Liverpudlian,

Nana, her mum, my mum's mum would have probably given her

when she set off for university. I mean, I know it can't have

been that bad because I don't think it included anything like

garlic paste or garlic powder. But yeah, probably wasn't the

most legitimate pasta sauce you've ever heard of.

Lucy Dearlove: And was there any sort of interaction between

those two older generations of your family? So I guess like

like your nonna and then and then your mum's mum, your

grandma on that side? Did they ever sort of encounter each

other in terms of cooking or food?

Thea Lenarduzzi: Well, I suppose what they had in common, I mean,

when I think about it, when I think about my, my kind of food

passions, they probably are both on both sides centered around my

grandmother, so that split you know, split down the middle

exactly along the lines of my heritage almost. On the one

hand, there is the kind of simple rusticity I suppose of my

nonna's cooking in Italy, where everything was homemade and you

know, tended to take ages usually from homegrown roots as

well and they'd be like gnocchi with a ragu or polenta with some

kind of slow cooked beast, you know, often dropped off by a

friend from the mountains and you know, it would have been

boar or deer or goat or something and courgettes and

carrots which she'd grown herself and she'd soften them

for ages over a low heat and then there'd be some wild grass

or other which was always wilted and in a plate of its own. And

then on the other hand, there was my English side, my English,

Nana's cooking, which I mean by the time I was I was born and

old enough to know what was going on it was quite heavily

influenced by Marks and Spencers you know, it was a lot of

convenience and you know, little luxuries. So there'd be you

know, fun things like dolly mixtures and prawn cocktails not

together. Obviously. That would have been just weird. But um,

yeah, I guess my favourite...the similarity between the two

grandmas was that my favorite kind of cooking of my English

grandma was also a kind of simple, simple style. It was

probably stuff that was slightly adapted from war food, I guess,

you know, she'd it was very frugal, so she'd maybe melt some

really mild cheddar in a shallow oven dish with milk. And then

you just soak ans scoop bread around in this sloppy, stringy

mess. It's called Pobs. I mean, anyone from the North will

probably know what Pobs is. And there's a sweet version as well.

But ours was always the cheesy milky version...or baked potato

with, with corned beef, you know, and loads of butter. Just

I mean, my Nana was obsessed with butter, I think she sort of

spent the rest of her life making up for wartime rationing

by just...she would stockpile it. And that sort of rubbed off

on me to be honest, I'm, I'm also quite obsessed with butter.

But in both cases, both grandmas, I never ever saw a

recipe. And so I don't cook from recipes, either. So many of the

dishes that my nonna especially would make. I mean, my, my

English grandma wouldn't dream of, of picking weeds from the

side of the road. But my Italian grandma... so much of the

cooking that she did, so many of the ingredients that she used

were, if not grown herself than just grown wild, so there'd be

[...], which is...it's also called sclopit, because of the

noise that that...it's Bladder Campion. And they have these

little bell flowers. And if you put it on your hand, and then

you whack it down with your other hand, it makes it kind of

a popping noise. So that's why it's called Sclopit in in

Friulano, but these these are wild grasses and nettles and,

and things like that, that nonna would always use and that's

really hard to kind of work into a recipe because it relies

on...you can't just say you know, pop down to the shop and

buy X, Y and Z... it's sort of...wait for them to be in

season or find your little foraging spot, go and gather and

you can't really measure or predict those sorts of things, I

think

Lucy Dearlove: And that's obviously something that's very

present in your book Dandelions, like we open with a scene of

dandelions being picked by the side of the road as you're

talking about... what was the significance of kind of that

plant that made you want to include it throughout the book

and kind of centre it around that?

Thea Lenarduzzi: I think I couldn't have done it any other

way really, I think...I mean, food in general is such an

integral part of of the fabric of a family's life, even if it's

not a foodie family in inverted commas, you know, even if

it's...even if you're having chips and, and, and beans or

whatever, that's still a part of the fabric of your life and

those dishes are on that table for multiple reasons. But

certainly in my family's life, dandelions or whatever wilted

wild grass you want to think about, was involved. And

dandelions...it's just the kind of the eternal presence of it.

It's, it's a dish that features almost every dinner time because

they're so abundant, and we all love them. And they sort of say

something about our family and specifically about my Nonna. So

I think when I started writing Dandelions, I knew that I wanted

- and this, this might sound kind of pretentious - but I

wanted to capture something of the essence of Nonna and the

dish of dandelions that accompanies every dinner we

have, it's almost the most obvious way of doing that,

because the mere thing of it, it kind of opens out in a number of

directions at once. It's a, it's a really rich dish, not just

nutritionally but in terms of what it says about her and about

us. So first is the story about how she used to collect it when

she was living in Manchester, in the 1950s and 60s, she just

emigrated there for the second time. And you know, what it says

about her character and the life she was living at that time, a

life on the margins of society, I guess, as an Italian

immigrant, then there's what it tells us about where she came

from, about the culture that she had grown up, in the culture

that knew how to how to use these ingredients how to how to

forage for, for one thing or another that was that tended to

be shunned by the more - again in inverted commas - developed

society that she had moved into in England. So it kind of...the

dish emphasises her foreignness and her desire to, to carry on

in the customs that she grew up with, you know, not in some

grand sense, more subconscious than that, you know, her

stomach, her stomach needed these greens. It was the most

natural thing in the world to her, she sees them a great free

food...I'll pick it I'll take it and for dinner, you know, she

maintains to this day that dandelions are a cure for all

all ills. And then for me as a writer, dandelions sort of sort

of offers itself up as a ready made motif, you know, like a

ready meal if you, if you'd like, but it's just like, laden

with with like significance you know? So I started thinking

about dandelions more broadly. What are they? What's their life

cycle? How do they work? How do they pollinate? How do they, you

know, what, what's their lifecycle? I'd never thought

about it and you know, what do they mean? And what have they

meant in different times in different places to different

people? And, you know, this is a dish that can either bring us

together as it does in my family, but it also sets us

apart it shows up the divisions between people and cultures on

the one hand, who who look at dandelions and recognize that

they're a deeply nutritious free food. So not nasty, it's... to

gather them and take them home for the family. And the people

on the other side who who look at her like she's she's a

nutter. You know, she, what's she doing ferreting around in,

in the mud? Has she lost something? Has she lost her

mind? You know, I doubt any of the people in Manchester would

have looked at her and thought, Oh, right, yeah, she's, she's

gathering....gathering dandelions. And yeah, I mean, I

was sort of reminded of it a few years ago, I was walking on

Hackney Marshes with a friend and, and we were just walking

around, and people were playing fetch with their dogs and all

the usual stuff. And then we saw...it was just a group of, of

Indian women. And they were they had plastic bags, and they were

stooping and gathering, stooping and gathering and I was like,

Oh, I wonder what they're gathering. I wonder if it's

dandelions. So we went over and we said, you know, what are you,

what are you gathering? And they said, Oh, it's mustard seed. You

know, it's delicious. Take it...sorry mustard grass, it's

delicious. Take it. And they gave us like a big bunch each

and said, you know, go home, wilt it down with a knob of

butter and some salt. And so we did. And it was delicious. And

it was just that one moment, you know, the gathering, the

knowledge, the exchange, and it's just bursting with story.

So yeah, that's it. That's why dandelions, that's what

happened.

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah, it is so interesting, because they're so

abundant here. But we just don't have that kind of history or

connection to them. Like, I genuinely didn't know you could

eat them pretty much until I read the book, I was like, Huh,

okay. Makes a lot of sense. Because they were bitter, you

know. They're a bitter weed. Yeah. But it just never occurred

to me. And yeah, but it seems it seems so strange. I think

especially given the kind of current context of like, how, I

guess like aspirational, gathering food in that way is in

some ways, that there's just the, you know, that the response

to when when Dirce was gathering them, like it was so different.

I don't know, I don't quite know how to articulate it, this

Thea Lenarduzzi: No, totally, I mean, foraging became this

progression.

incredibly kind of chichi, middle class thing to do in

recent years, which, obviously, my nonna and my family are just

completely confused by. But it's yeah, it's like it's gone full

circle in the same way that you know, peasant food always has

done...it sort of started in the most humble origins. And then,

you know, the fact that polenta is served in the finest

restaurants now...again, my family's like, what? Really?

Wow, okay. I mean, I love polenta. But you would never

have seen it in a fancy restaurant until relatively

recently. And that's right. It's a quite it's quite strange turn

of events, I suppose.

Lucy Dearlove: I think sometimes there's a kind of portrayal as

migration as this very, like one way, permanent process, like

it's very linear. And in in Dandelions, there's this kind of

like back and forth between England and in Italy. I guess

I'm just interested to know your thoughts around like that

portrayal of migration, and then how you were writing about your

own family? I mean, obviously, you could only write about it in

the way that it happens. And that and that is the way that it

was. But would you agree with that? Do you think that is how

migration tends to be portrayed? Or is it a bit more complicated

than that?

Thea Lenarduzzi: You mean, that it's pNortrayed in terms of

clinging, you know, clinging to its foods, and its cultures,

rather than assimilating?

Lucy Dearlove: No, more so that when we talk about migration,

it's that people move from one country to another. And, you

know, obviously, they choose to kind of...it's natural that they

would keep customs and cultures from their country of origin.

But there's, I feel like there's less conversation about people

then going back to their home country. I mean, this could be I

could be barking up completely the wrong tree here. But it was

something that really struck me during the book that there is

this like, kind of movement throughout the book that isn't

just like, we're going to a new country. And that's, like,

that's our new life, if that makes sense.

Thea Lenarduzzi: Well, I think the thing was, I think the thing

with how migration worked in my family and continues to work in

my family is that everything is both... it's not one or the

other. It's both and everything in between. So so my Nonna...For

example, she if you ask my Nonna as my....so my husband once

asked her...we'd...me and my husband had been in Tuscany and

then...we'd been there for like five or six weeks. Then we went

up to my Nonna from there. My Nonna's in the Friuli, which is

in north east, very close to the Slovenian border. And so we were

both kind of pumped full of the joys of Tuscany like oh my gosh,

isn't it beautiful? And you go to the Friuli, the Friuli is

beautiful, but it's a very different landscape, it's flat.

And it's not, you know, it's not a must on the on the tourist

circuit, I think it should be, but not very many people visit

there who aren't from there or live near it. And so yeah, we

were pumped full of Tuscany. And my husband just talking to my

Nonna said, so Dirce, if you could live anywhere in Italy,

where would you live? And Nonna, without missing a beat, just

goes Manchester. So as though Manchester is like a little

enclave of Italy, or a continuation of Italy. And I

think in a way it was for her because when she, when she lived

there, she was in the Italian community mostly. But also, I

think it says something about how a lot of the times

migration, it collapses, the boundaries, it collapses the

borders, so that you don't really necessarily distinguish

with where you came and where you now are, where you came from

and where you not now are or vice versa. It's not about going

this way, or that way. It's about sort of existing across

the place, across the places. And I think my, in my nonna's

mind, and for me as well, you sort of your life sort of is

split, but it's not that you stop living one, when you leave

that country, I've not stopped living in Italy, just because I

don't live there. If that makes any sense. I'm still I'm still

living a life that's sort of ticking over over there. And

then when I go back to Italy, as I will be in a few weeks time,

I'll just pick up where I left off with that. Yeah, you know,

certain stuff will feel slightly out of place. And I'll, you

know, maybe take me a while to sort of switch back into

certain, certain rhythms or modes. But yeah, I think I think

that's, I think that might be what you're kind of putting your

finger on when you when you say about it's not backwards and

forwards. It's not one or the other. You're both?

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Something else that

is really apparent in the book is the kind of blurring of like

fact and a fiction that we create around our own lives. And

you're very transparent about that. I think, maybe sometimes,

like when you're talking about your own family history, there

is a temptation to present it as fact. But I think the

acknowledgement that you give kind of throughout the book of

like, I know that some of this is embellished or like not true,

or it's different to what she told me last time or like it was

that...Did you know that was always going to be how you were

writing it?

Thea Lenarduzzi: It had to be you know, it all came very

naturally, organically I guess just because you know, I'm very

much my nonna's granddaughter, I've grown up on her stories and

they chop and change from telling to telling, and you

know, so I guess you know, like to keep that food theme going,

you always have to have a hefty pinch of salt at hand when

you're listening to anything that comes out of Nonna's mouth,

you know, I guess I've always appreciated as a result how

mercurial memory can be. How you know, in one telling, this is my

cousin and then the next it's, it's my brother or you know,

just chops and changes all the time. And, you know, memories

do... they shift and they shift depending on on mood and, and

context in any number of elements. But I think even when

they're not strictly true, you know, they're not an exact

reflection of what happened if there could ever be such a

thing, you know, that they may be truer as a result, you know,

they're true in a deeper sense of the word. So like, reality

and truth aren't the same thing. It's a bit like, you know,

Werner Herzog has this idea about ecstatic truth he calls it

and it's, it's sort of when reality isn't true enough. He

said something like...facts, create norms. And truth creates

light or truth creates illumination. And it's that

sometimes you need to draw on the toolkit of fiction, to

create that illumination. We all do this all the time. You know,

that's how that's what happens when we remember things when we

tell ourselves, what happened. And when we tell that to other

people as well, is that like, there's this, he said, there's

like a deeper strata of truth. And it can only be reached

through fabrication, and imagination and stylization. And

so then you accept that...if you accept that to be true, which I

do. The next question then has to be why, like, why is the

story being told this way? What purpose does it serve the teller

or the listener? Because after all, memory, like memory is

story, memory is a fiction in the oldest order. That's how we

understand our past our present, and we prepare for the future.

And so when you're talking about family stories, or like when

you're talking about in a family, in a broader sense,

wondering about a nation's stories, because a nation is

basically a dysfunctional family, you know, it's not just

about the individual, we all have a deeply vested interest, I

think in in these matters in asking those questions and

asking, you know, what kind of truth is this? You know, is it

reality or is it something else, you know, how do those two

things line up or not as the case may be? And what does it

tell us?

Lucy Dearlove: I think maybe my favourite example of that in the

book is when you talk about learning to make gnocchi with

your sister, and then you're nonna like later can pletely

denies the story that she told you about how she learnt it. And

yeah, completely different story about that she'd learned it in a

restaurant she hadn't learnt it from from her mother was it at

all? Yeah,

Thea Lenarduzzi: exactly. She said she didn't learn it from

her mother. Because I mean, the relationship between Nonna and

her mother Novella was difficult to put it mildly. And yeah, we,

we know, what we think we know is that she learned it from her

Nonna Novella. And again, it would have been in a not in a

reading a recipe sort of way it would have been observing and

observing. And then when we when we asked her about it when we

just mentioned it in passing, like, oh, because of course you

learned to do it this way because of your mom, she, as you

said, completely blocked it. She was like absolutely not No, I

learned it, I learned it in a restaurant that I worked in when

I first moved back to Italy in the 70s. And it was actually

because my Nonna uses her index finger to put the grooves in the

gnocchi the little kind of pools where, where the sauce will,

will go in and sit once you've cooked them, so they each one

has the imprint of her index finger in it, which I think is

just lovely. But I said, well, that's kind of you know,

sometimes it can get a bit messy because you can catch it with

your nail. And then you can tear the pasta, which you don't want

to do if you just press a bit too hard. So how come you don't

use your knuckle like, like your mum did? And her face, you know,

sort of set against me, you know, she was like, Oh, my, you

know, my Nan, my, my, my mum didn't do that. She didn't do

that. She didn't teach me and it was just a weird moment. I was

like, okay, that's how you want to tell this story today. So

I'll respect that. But I've made a little note in my notebook.

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah, yeah. And that is really hard to navigate

with someone that you love. And you know very well and and

because also like, yeah, like you're saying, like, it

doesn't...just because it's not the truth that you heard

earlier, doesn't mean it's not real.

Thea Lenarduzzi: Yeah, exactly. Well, doesn't mean that it's not

full of truth and the truth of that of that particular instance

is that really conveys the truth of the difficulty of the

relationship between Dirce and her mother Novella.

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah, yeah, totally. I think something else

that I really wanted to ask you about was what you think about

the kind of...and you write about this a little bit in the

book...the idea of the the Nonna as like this, you talk about it

as a byword for timeless purity, which I thought encapsulated so

much about like, even in this country where I feel like the

approach to Italian food is sometimes like, basic at best.

There is this kind of sense of like, you know, stuff like Pasta

Grannies and things like that. Like there's this real like,

Okay, this is where we learn like real true cooking from...

How do you feel about that perception of a Nonna?

Thea Lenarduzzi: Well, I mean, that so much of that is about

almost like the marketization of women, of Nonne. You know, if

you buy if you pick up a packet of biscuits, and it says, this

is Nonna'ss recipe, you're like, Ah, we're in safe hands, great.

You know, there's nothing tainted here. It's all pure and

wholesome. That's, that's marketing. But it's all kind of

preying on this, this archetype. You know, it's a character of a

Nonna. You can almost see her almost as like a, like a Dolmii

puppet, you know, Dolmio, which is, I think, made in Holland.

But no, so she's like this benevolent old woman who exists

to feed the family, to selflessly provide and then

presumably, sit there silently dishing it out, while the men

talk about important things, you know, in my experience, an

aspect of that is true, yes, it takes hours for Nonna to make

her delicious food, you know, for one meal, which will often

not be commented on by anyone, because it's always... it's just

always there. We take it for granted to a great degree, and

also her husband, my Nonno, my granddad, he did make very clear

his discontent if lunch was not on the table at noon on the dot.

But I suppose what I wanted to do was to pick that archetype

apart, you know, to, to also give her back the power that she

has in that, you know, when she makes her tiramisu or her

gnocchi, it's, it's a triumph. She isn't passive. She's alive,

you know, she's choosing to impress us. She's reminding us,

she's choosing to remind us of her indispensability. And that's

also why she doesn't ever give us the full recipe, you know,

she always leaves something out, so no one can replace her. And

you know, the cooking, it's all part of her scene setting and

the table is her space, even if she's silent, which generally

she isn't. She's totally in charge. You know, she's the

director of the film of our family. And these days, she

tends to leave quite soon after we've all eaten, sometimes

before we finish because she gets tired. She hardly eats any

more herself, you know, she's nearly 97, she's gonna be 97 In

a few weeks time and, and when when she gets up to go, the

whole thing sags. The centre drops out, we all feel weird,

but I think it's that thing of elderly women, women generally,

food, migrants, weeds. These are all things that have generally

been overlooked or not considered worthy of scrutiny.

You know, how many books are there about great men who did

great things and how many are there about a grandmother who no

one's ever heard of...is that because there's nothing of

interest in that woman's life, you know about her experiences

and her thoughts and her feelings? I don't, I mean I

don't think so. I don't think...I don't think anyone

could argue that really. So, yeah, I just I guess I wanted to

give her back her dimensions. And part of that was about

considering all of her stories, considering her food in the

round, you know, not just to talk about how, how delicious

these dishes are, which they definitely are, but to think

about why she cooks, the things she does, why she cooks them how

she does, what they tell us about her, and the life that

she's lived and the people and the places that she's known, why

they matter, why all of her stories matter, what they link

to, why do we need to keep telling them? Why do we need to

carry them with us?

Lucy Dearlove: I feel like I've really noticed more recently,

being interested in kind of like domesticity and like the space

of the kitchen, within people's homes over history, how little

has actually been written about that over time, and just

that...you're so right like that overlooking of women's space,

migrants' space like that kind of Yeah, it's yeah, it's so

true. And it's almost like the...people talk about everyday

life as like, like...mundane is often a word that comes up. But

like, there's actually...even the sort of things that happen

in the book, like people going to work, people moving house,

like people...there's so much significance in all of it.

Thea Lenarduzzi: Yeah, there's so much living in the living,

that we don't, that we don't that we don't consider. And I

think when I think about my nonna's kitchen in Italy, I

think it's quite interesting thinking about domestic spaces

because she has her little tiny, tiny little galley kitchen,

which has not changed at all since she had... since they

built that house in the 19, late 1960s and finished in 1971. It's

exactly the same...the oranges, the browns, the sunflowers, but

she's got that little galley kitchen and then there's a kind

of a half wall and a big faux satin orange curtain covered in

really busy flowers. And then you're into the living room

where there's a sofa, a TV, the cupboard with so much so much

chaos is barely contained. And then you've got a stove with

four or five rings on it a wood burning stove that she's feeding

all day you work through the summer, yeah. All through the

day, all through the seasons, whether it's summer or anything,

it's always on. And I think that's what she's done.

Actually. She's She broke up that space. She's not confined

in the kitchen while everyone else is in the living space.

She's in and out, the curtain is never ever closed. It's always

half open at least Yeah, she's collapsed that boundary in the

same way as she collapsed the boundary between Italy and

England. She moves freely. And you know, we may sit still but

she is always backwards and forwards, spooning something out

here, stirring something over there, clattering around. You

can't confine her. She won't be, she won't be hidden away in a

domestic space. Thank you very much. She's, she's in front of

the curtain. She's on stage all the time, where she belongs,

quite frankly. And she knows that.

Lucy Dearlove: So just one final thing to end and if you know,

fair enough, if you want to not give it away, but I was

wondering if you would share how you would prepare and cook

dandelions.

Thea Lenarduzzi: I mean, it's it's very boring. It's very,

very simple. But I think that's that's the key to some of the

best food....you just absolutely gather them wherever you gather

them depending on where you gather and gather them wash them

particularly well. And you boil them or steam them you could

steam them but yeah, boil them or steam them for 15,20 minutes

in salty water, drain them but not too much. You don't want

them to be dry. You want to keep a lot of that moisture. Then put

them back into the pan, so keep the pan warm with a little oil,

little olive oil, which my nonna always likes to remind me when

she was in England used to have to buy it in the pharmacy. And

it was probably horrible stuff. But serve it with Yeah, with

that oil warm and then squeeze a bit of lemon on the end of salt.

I guess you could add a knob of butter if you were my English

Nana, not that she would have eaten dandelions. But there you

go. That's really that's really it. You can also actually can

also parboil the roots, because you know, when you pull up a

dandelion, if you pull the whole thing out, you pull it sometimes

it's half a metre long, the white roots that comes up and

it's really gnarled so you can parboil the roots, chop them up

and preserve them in vinegar. And they're they're really rich

source of of all sorts of goodnesses

Lucy Dearlove: what and what's the texture of them?

Thea Lenarduzzi: Depending on how much you boil them and you

don't want to boil them too much they've got a nice bite to them.

Yeah, they've got a little bit of a crunch a bit like You know

Giardinera, which is yeah pickled carrots and celery and

bits of cauliflower that similar sort of a bit al dente you want

them to be and then yeah, preserve them in vinegar and and

then you just have them you know, as a side with cheese, or

I mean anything, anything goes with cheese, but Yeah, that's it

just have them have them in a jar on your table when you're

having anything really. You could start the day with then

that'd be a bit weird, but

Lucy Dearlove: I'm not sure I have the stomach for pickles.

First thing. We'll probably do I know maybe I need to up my game.

Well, I'm definitely going to cook these dandelions. Maybe I'm

maybe not going to collect them like on the side of the A2.

Thea Lenarduzzi: No, no, maybe don't do that

Lucy Dearlove: Maybe they'd be like in a nice park somewhere.

Thea Lenarduzzi: Yeah, exactly. Send me a picture I'd like to

I'd love to see them

Lucy Dearlove: Thanks so much to Thea Lenarduzzi For this really

generous interview that I actually found really moving

both to record and to listen back to. There's so much living

in the living. It's true. Let's remember it. Dandelions is out

now published by Fitzcarraldo and available in all good

bookshops. I really urge you to get a copy and read it. It's

just a beautiful book. It's incredibly moving. And it made

me think about kind of the stories that we tell within

families in a completely different way. But it's also

just really funny and lively. And Thea is a fantastic writer.

I love it so much. Get a copy. You can support Lecker on

Patreon for three pounds a month and get access to a bonus

episode every month. As I mentioned, the previous episode,

this month's is going to include some extra bits from each

episode released this month, specifically around recipes and

their role within personal writing. There's going to be

kind of a whole other separate episode around that. And it's

going to be really good. If I do say so myself. Subscribe if

you'd like to hear it. Lecker is entirely listener funded. So

patrons subscriptions are just really important in me being

able to continue to make the podcast music is by bluedot

sessions. Thanks to Ben McDonald, who is Lecker's

Resident illustrator. You can see his work on the Lecker

Instagram and Twitter at like a podcast. There is one more

episodes come this month around this theme that I've been kind

of tracing through different books and conversations about

how writers approach telling personal stories through food.

Make sure you're subscribed on your podcast platform of choice

and you can listen as soon as they're released. Thanks for

listening. I will be back in your feed very soon.