As for the allure of Pasta Grannies, Bennison is succinct: “People come for the pasta but stay for the grandmothers.” When you’re poor, eating meat is a great luxury and one that you don’t turn down. For many of these women growing up, they ate meat twice a year, but they don’t call themselves vegetarian,” she says. “For these women, growing up, everything mattered. They were the workforce of the family, working in the fields, making food from scratch at an early age. Everything is used. Excess pasta is turned into a frittata or a soup, and you eat modestly. If you place importance on food, you cherish it. It’s a way of bringing family together.”

Bennison has captured the lives and recipes of 60 popular nonne (grandmothers) whom she met while traveling Italy, meeting and interviewing Italian grandmothers for her Pasta Grannies YouTube channel. While you could admittedly Google gnocchi, this denies food the essential quality of being a language of nourishment, culture, tradition, and nuance. Take Pina’s Chestnut Gnocchi With Walnut Pesto, for example. The 91-year-old nonna’s recipe is distinct for sourcing ingredients from her home in Liguria. It is one of the delectable reasons for daily indulgence in Bennison’s duty to share the grannies with the world. When you have formed a ball, turn it out onto the pasta board and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and lightly bouncy. Cover and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.Wash and dry the basil leaves thoroughly. Add a handful at a time to the mortar, with a pinch of salt, then pound and grind the leaves into the paste. The whole point of recipes is that you make them your own. The publishers like me to put a lot of detail in [the book], but trust yourself. Of course, you can substitute. Follow the recipes, but if your taste buds tell you something different or if you can’t find something, swap it out. You will make it something wonderful.”

Add the pasta to the sauté pan. Toss the pasta with the courgette and 1 tablespoon of the mint and sauté the mixture for a minute or so. If you feel the pasta is drying out too much, add a bit of pasta water. Spending time with our family and friends has never felt so important - and so often this means cooking for the ones you love.Learn how to make pasta like Italian nonnas do. Inspired by the hugely popular YouTube channel of the same name, Pasta Grannies is a wonderful collection of time-perfected Italian pasta recipes from the people who have spent a lifetime cooking for love, not a living: Italian grandmothers.

Each recipe is also available on the YouTube channel and one can easily find them by scanning the corresponding QR code. I love the use of herbs, the pestos, and pansoti, which is a walnut salsa served with raviolo pansoti, which are stuffed with foraged wild greens so you get this bitterness along with the walnuts. We’ve also got some very good pies from Liguria.”

Discover 91 year-old Pina's chestnut gnocchi with walnut pesto, lovingly made with ingredients she grows around her home in Liguria; or 99 year-old Marietta's special tagliatelle recipe, which is not really a recipe at all but a reflection of her vegetable garden, the Calabrian countryside and the changing seasons. As well as meat, seafood and vegetable pasta recipes, chapters cover pizzas, pastries and pies, rice and pulses, dairy and herbs, nuts and spices. To begin with, weigh out your eggs and flour separately. Tip the flour onto a pasta board and make a generous well in the middle in which to pour your eggs.