Daniela Maiorano with Anna, a local vendor at the Sulmona Market in Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi, in Abruzzo, Italy. Anna forages wild asparagus and sells it at her stall.Jess Kearney/The Globe and Mail
“Ciao amici, today we are doing la cacio e pepe – the queen of all the Roman dishes.”
So begins Italian chef Daniela Maiorano’s Instagram reel for a creamless cacio e pepe, which dropped in January and became popular thanks to her accessible walk-through for making a simple, delicious-looking pasta. But the quiet magic of her casual, flirty delivery, combined with plenty of eye contact and an impish smirk, sealed the deal to make the moment go viral. It has racked up 3.8 million views as of mid-July, and there’s a good chance that if you’re one of her roughly 155,000 followers, this is the video that introduced you to her no-frills, off-the-cuff video recipes.
Maiorano, a fourth-generation chef, grew up working in Ristorante Clemente, an institution in her hometown of Sulmona in Abruzzo, two hours east of Rome. Before founding the restaurant in 1957, her great-grandfather had opened a cantina in town. But Clemente’s early years were defined by her nonna’s cooking and hard work. The family’s matriarch taught Maiorano about the pleasure of food and the sacrifice required to devote oneself to a craft. Maiorano left Sulmona as a teenager and gained further experience working in restaurants in Rome, London and Berlin; formally studied photography; quit taking heroin after a decade of using the drug; and was briefly a professional boxer. She eventually moved to the surf haven of Byron Bay, Australia, where she lives with her partner, Bess.
After establishing herself in the biggest cities in Europe and another continent, she now feels driven to return to her roots and bring others to Abruzzo, where she has been working on new food and wine tours while continuing to run her catering business in Byron Bay.
Almost a year before her viral video, Maiorano was urged by an influencer friend to post a recipe walk-through to boost her online following in order to drum up more business. After a lot of resistance, she caved and put together a reel featuring spaghetti with anchovies, butter and a secret ingredient you’ll have to watch to discover. Maiorano’s natural charisma proved a big hit. She increased her Instagram following fivefold overnight.
Maiorano purchasing meat from the local maceleria (butcher) in Sulmona, Abruzzo, Italy.Jess Kearney/The Globe and Mail
“I never loved content creators in food on Instagram,” Maiorano says over a cappuccino in June earlier this year at a Roman bakery and café named Tulipane. Despite all the attention, she has a general lack of desire to play the content-creation game, such as posting a certain number of reels each week or seeking constant engagement. Her videos are devoid of the sleek production typical of many chronically online recipe slingers. “It’s not my style,” she says.
Instead, she recognized early on that she could use her new audience for good, and has used her platform on Instagram to educate people about food. Maiorano’s videos have emphasized traditional farming and production models; highlighted women chefs, farmers and producers; and revealed the maximum number of chickens per hectare that can still nab a “free range” designation in Australia (10,000!). She also uses her social media to get the word out about her events, like the one at Tulipane a week prior where she cooked dishes such as a battered and fried primo sale – a firm, young cheese traditionally made with sheep’s milk – with saffron and honey.
Her latest endeavour, weeklong food and wine experiences in Abruzzo, gives her the chance to connect the way she prefers – offline, in conversation over meals or cooking, exposing others to small farms and producers who are engaging sustainably with the land where she comes from. The first trip happened this May, and she has six events already planned for next year in May, June, September and October, for a maximum of a dozen participants.
Maiorano prepares fritelle e ricotta, a popular dish at her father’s restaurant, Ristorante Clemente in Sulmona, Italy.Jess Kearney/The Globe and Mail
“It’s like you’re coming into my house,” Maiorano says. “I show you my culture. I show you my family. It’s not fancy. We go to explore artisans who have been doing this job for 10 generations.”
One of the choices she emphasizes is buying seasonal products from small, local producers whenever possible. On the first of her food and wine tours, she brought participants to Claire Staroccia and Dan Gibeon’s Rito Pane, a home restaurant and bakery in the tiny town of Stiffe, and to the former farm of late Abruzzese shepherd Gregorio Rotolo, now an agri-tourism destination for traditionally made cheese and meat. While the artisans will change, Maiorano plans to revisit makers based on the seasons.
“Food, for me, is the key,” Maiorano says. “Because we need food every day, and every day we can make a choice to avoid something and support something else.”
Her tour groups have also learned to make cheese from a farming couple who have fewer than 20 goats and milk them daily by hand. “They love what they’re doing,” Maiorano says. “They bring the goats to walk in the mountains for six hours every day. Who’s going to protect these people? I want to do this.”
Maiorano speaks with a tinge of gravitas: She has a history of human and gay rights activism, and understands how important food quality and security is in that context. Preserving traditional and sustainable methods of food production and its agents is of primary concern for her now.
“I want to take the power to change something and change something,” Maiorano says about her online reach. “I don’t want to do what all the others are doing, just doing things for themselves. We need to work for the community. We need to become, again, united.”
