"Quanto Basta"

There I was, standing in the kitchen of a large family home in south-eastern Sicily, ordered chaos all around me. High ceilings soared over walls lined with blue ceramic tiles, while every surface was scattered with pots and pans and worn spatulas that had clearly aided generations of cooking, playing their part in decades of homemade sauces and stews. 

The kitchen was anchored by an island in the middle, half of it covered in a smooth polished oak while the other half in cooling marble, ideal for rolling out fresh pasta. Ceramic vessels and glass bottles occupied a permanent position in its centre while the rest of surface was dotted with the fresh ingredients that Marisa, our hostess, would be using to cook our three-course meal that day: vats of fried eggplant for our starter lay next to a pile of oranges plucked from the orchard outside, which would be the base of our dessert. A platter of pink salami bejewelled with glistening flecks of fat and a hunk of cheese which came from the dairy farm down the road would also be used — provided we didn’t eat all of it during the preparation. Next to some loose eggs and a basket of home-baked bread there was a plate with delicately sized meatballs uniformly and lovingly rolled out by Marisa that morning waiting to be blanketed in her tomato sauce which, you guessed it, was home made.

On the far right of the kitchen was a doorway which led to a panoramic terrace overlooking the Sicilian countryside and rows of olive trees that Marisa and her family tended to to make their own oil. She ushered us all outside where Aperol Spritzes and deep-fried sage leaves were waiting for us, both glistening in the nourishing February sun.

While we stood there drinking, photosynthesising and crunching on the sage leaves, Marisa darted back inside to start cooking lunch from the disorderly array of food which she had laid out. But I trusted that there was a method to her madness and, unable to resist, I followed her eager for her  culinary secrets to be revealed. If the deep-fried sage leaves were anything to go by, I knew we were in for a true feast.

Like many Sicilian nonnas, Marisa’s height and stature belie her tenacity. And in her kitchen - her kingdom - you saw it at the height of its power. She began with the starter — timballo, a typical southern Italian baked pasta dish bound by eggplant, melted cheese, tomato sauce, and ham. In individual ramekins, she started scooping in the ingredients, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I was doing my best to keep up, watching her deft movements like a hawk trying to make mental notes of how much salt, how many layers of cheese. This wasn’t helped by the fact that every now and then she’d whizz to the stove to stir a sauce for the main course or chop the oranges for the dessert.

Finally, unable to keep up any longer, as Marisa was measuring out the agnolotti pasta for each portion of the timballo, I asked her how much one should prepare for a meal with six mouths to feed. Her reply was perfect. Frustrating but perfect: “Quanto basta.” It best translates to ‘as much as is needed.’ It’s a typical response. In Italy, recipes and culinary traditions are oral and tactile. Most of the country’s home cooks, and even some professional chefs, have learnt their exquisite dishes and their trade from their family elders, who showed them the ropes from an early age. One Italian nonna who I once met demonstrated to me how she rolled out her maccheroni pasta using old umbrella spokes, just as she had seen her grandmother do in the early 20th century. Through practice and perfection, these culinary matriarchs know exact measurements for all their home recipes simply by instinct: ‘quanto basta.’

It’s not an easy concept to get your head around. As someone who relies on carefully outlined instructions to make even the simplest plate of pasta, the idea of winging it doesn’t come naturally to me. My brother is a professionally trained chef, and I had always admired his clinical approach to cooking; all his condiments carefully labelled and dated, countertops always wiped clean, ingredients always measured to the milligram. Marisa’s kitchen, where chaos reigned, would have sent him reeling and yet, she was effortlessly putting together a three-course meal from the disarray without breaking a sweat. 

The longer I watched Marisa eyeball every ingredient to make the timballo, followed by meatballs in tomato sauce and finally a zesty orange mousse served within its peel, the more I began to follow her rhythms. It was like a dance. By the way she navigated her way around the cluttered room, it was clear that even with her eyes closed, she would be able to locate any spice, condiment or kitchen tool from its resting place. She knew every inch of the space, moving through it elegantly, swiftly, with purpose. 

Her ability to make her food with measurings of ‘quanto basta’ cannot be mistaken for nonchalance. Every meal which Marisa cooks is a big deal. It’s her expression of love and the most important role she can fulfil for her family. Instead, her ‘quanto basta’ approach is almost a philosophy to live by and to consider taking beyond the kitchen. ‘Quanto basta’ means that Marisa trusts her gut, she knows herself, she has honed her craft, and she understand what is right for the final result. 

Marisa didn’t learn ‘quanto basta’ overnight. As a child, she listened, she watched, she learned in the very same kitchen that she now flits around all these decades later. 

At its heart, 'quanto basta’ is more than a culinary method; it is about moderation, intuition, and living purposefully. It’s knowing how to enjoy the richness of life without overcomplicating it, and this can apply to a pinch of salt in a sauce, or pouring a crisp glass of wine for yourself at the end of a busy day. It’s about balance over perfection, and satisfying the soul without the weight of unnecessary excess.

As we sat down for our meal in the adjacent room (a world of contrasts, by the way — the dining room was immaculate with not even a stray crease on the white linen tablecloth), I began to think about how I could bring a little more ‘quanto basta’ into my daily routine. I knew it would take some time to unlearn a few of my more cautious habits but as the plates were passed around and glasses were filled, one thing was certain; when it came to Marisa’s food I’d be taking far more than ‘quanto basta.’