Who expected this novel from Csaba dalla Zorza, sophisticated queen of bon ton, social media star, famous for her 23 cookbooks and television programs in which she prepares delicious sauces, advises on clothing combinations or observes the set tables like an entomologist, scrutinizing – as in “Courtesies for guests” on Real Time – the ripples of the tablecloths, the combination of porcelain plates, the “mise en place” of the cutlery. The Governess, by Csaba dalla Zorza, published by Marsilio, now a bestseller, is a merciless criticism of the hypocrisies of the bourgeois family which it seems to be inspired by. The story of a separated mother, a cooking expert journalist, who announces to her children that she is abandoning her profession for a new life (which life we will know with a twist that we won’t spoil). Where the set Sunday table, a bit like in Ozpetek’s films, is transformed into a stage where characters scrutinized right into the soul alternate. «I have dreamed of writing a novel and making a living from writing since I was 17. Then someone told me: no darling, look, life doesn’t work like that. So I started doing other things, but I didn’t abandon this inclination. I worked in marketing, started writing articles as a journalist and when I wrote my first volume it was a cookbook. My legend was Sister Germana.”
Sister Germana?
“Certain. In 1992 I worked at Mondadori and I was interested in the various cooking specials in the magazines. But nothing sold like Sister Germana’s recipe books, which I adored, she was a true superstar. I tried to steal her job. I understood what the key to her success was: she made recipes that were feasible, practical, suitable for women who had families and at the same time worked at home and outside. Over time I have deepened the concept of etiquette, which is above all respect for the time and spaces of others. And I have always had one thing clear in mind…”
What?
«Always looking for beauty, at the table, in the kitchen, in my free time, in the family, but also adapting to a life like mine, a woman who works and takes care of the family. My goal has always been to get married, have children and continue working, perhaps because I am the daughter of divorced parents.”
A counter-current choice, if you read the statistics.
«I have nothing against those who choose to live together, I have nothing against those who have three children by three different husbands, but it’s not what I wanted and what many women are looking for. In my à la carte menu of life is what I have chosen, even if life doesn’t necessarily grant it to you.”
And in the end she succeeded: she is married to a well-known heart surgeon.
“That was the one thing I didn’t want, to get married to a doctor. It’s the fault of Saint Lawrence.”
What does Saint Lawrence have to do with it?
«I am a believer, there is a lot of religion in my life. I’ll explain it to you. Around 30 I felt fulfilled at work, but I started thinking: now I want a family, I want to become a mother. I came from a love story that had just ended, which lasted a very long time, we had broken up because we had gotten together too young. Left alone, I went to Paris to study haute cuisine for two years at the Cordon Bleu in Paris.”
It reminds me of something…
«Yes, I know, like Audrey Hepburn in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina. I wanted to change my life, also because I wrote a lot, but I didn’t sign anything, as often happens in editorial offices. I graduated in Paris and wrote my first cookbook. It was July, and a friend of mine invited me to Sardinia for a holiday. On the evening of San Lorenzo, August 10th, she invites me to the house of friends, almost all doctors and golfers who only talk about illnesses, holes and greens. Deadly boring. I spot a shooting star and ask Saint Lawrence to send me a boyfriend, possibly neither a doctor nor a golfer. On September 5th, my birthday, my sister invites me to a dinner where there are some friends and a boy I like: his name is Lorenzo, he is a doctor and also plays golf. We fell in love. The Lord says: ask and it will be given to you.”
Lorenzo Rosso, doctor and golfer however…
«In my opinion, Saint Lawrence had fun, also because I made the note “neither doctor nor golfer” out of time, when the star had already fallen. Two weeks ago we celebrated 21 years of being together. We have been married for 16 years and have two wonderful children.”
His novel desecrates the facade of bourgeois families.
«The driving force was my frustration with the fact that the female gender to which I belong continues to be so obtuse as to not understand that modernity is fine, progress is fine, but that to be emancipated it is not compulsory to do typically male jobs. And that’s also what I do in life. I’m married to the same man and I don’t cheat on him, I cook for the family, I work even if my husband could support me, because it’s my choice. These decisions also coexist in other women, who are their own rulers.”
Choices that were once conformist, today non-conformist…
«The most wonderful response is when I say I had two children by the same man and they look at you like you’re a panda. The Governess is a novel that says to women (and now that I have sold almost 80 thousand copies I feel more comforted): dear ladies, you are married to the same man, be proud of it, you would sometimes like to strangle your children but you love them like your own flesh, if in the morning you feel tired but you get up anyway, it’s all normal, set the table for the family in the evening and don’t be ashamed of it even if we now tend to eat in dribs and drabs. What’s more unconventional than this? But the real heroines are those who come home in the evening, put on their apron and cook instead of ordering on Deliveroo.”
