Reality check: Palo Alto’s restaurant scene wasn’t always so trendy and upscale. Dial back to the 1970s, before the world had gone mad for all things Italian, before chefs like Batali and Bastianich enjoyed celebrity status, before pesto and pancetta had entered our culinary lexicon. In those days, students familiar with Italian food—especially those who had recently returned from Stanford’s program in Florence—had to trek to San Francisco’s North Beach for “eenie” food—the “linguini, zucchini and fettuccine” cited as Italian fare in the film Breaking Away. In the City, one could find the semblance of a genuine macchiato at Caffè Trieste and Caffè Greco. Lines formed early for the cream-filled bomboloni turned out at Victoria Bakery. Tiny but raucous Caffè Sport served up teeming platters of shellfish, while a respectable saltimbocca could be had at Caesar’s. If parents (with their deeper wallets) were visiting, an elegant North Beach restaurant let students salvage some vestige of their Italian experience.
Re-assimilation into America’s culinary wasteland left many forlorn, convinced that writer Giuseppe Prezzolini had gotten it right when he queried, “What is the glory of Dante compared to spaghetti?” Yet, even reasonable facsimiles of the dishes we so fondly remembered couldn’t fill the void. It was the elusive convivium that we missed: food not as mere sustenance, but as the pleasure that nurtures the collective soul of those who gather at table.
Stanford’s wildly successful La Casa Italiana, still in its infancy in the mid-1970s, would eventually provide opportunities for students to experience convivium. In the meantime, a few dynamic instructors stepped in to fill the gap. Among them was Leopoldina Viggiano, my academic mentor. A woman of exceptional intelligence and unparalleled culture, Dina shone brilliantly in the whirlwind confusion of her kitchen, a place I frequently found myself after long days as a teaching assistant.
The Viggiano home, or more precisely its dining room, overflowed with faculty, students, visiting dignitaries, neighbors and family. Unexpected guests were welcomed with open arms. At times, my Type A personality rebelled. How could we possibly have dinner for 15 ready at 7 if grocery shopping had not yet begun at 6? Dina would simply smile, while wielding a spoon in one hand and a corded phone in the other. Behind her, the stove’s four burners blazed, one designated in perpetuity for risotto (or so I was convinced), a gesture of enduring affection for her native Veneto. In the end, magically, every meal came together: a beautifully laid table, delicious food, an abundance of laughter and warmth.
In a nation now so obsessed with food, I think often of the lessons Dina imparted in her kitchen and wonder if something has not been lost along the way. Was the spaghetti alla carbonara prepared with humble bacon rather than unavailable guanciale any less satisfying in the end? Hardly. Did anyone notice if the pasta was not always cooked to al dente perfection? Doubtful. Rather, the secret of Dina’s success in the kitchen was her unfailing generosity of spirit and clear understanding that the most critical variable in the culinary equation was not the sophistication of the dish served but the shared contentedness of one’s guests.
Elise Magistro, MA ’78, teaches at Scripps College.
