The History:
"My father and mother lived in that house and I spent my childhood there," Franco said. "With the olive trees surrounding the house and the 200 more that I planted, soon I'll be producing olive oil." That place in Umbria, high in the hills where Francis of Assisi and his monks had walked, seemed wrought from a canvas of Giotto or II Perugino. I understand why Franco, searching for a name for his restaurant in that far off Caribbean island, would think of II Perugino.
Perugia is a city that hosts an annual grand jazz festival as well as the Eurochocolate festival. It's also where Franco grew up, surrounded by the aromas and tastes of olive oil, cheeses, sausages, lake fish and white truffles of Umbria. Franco seems to have been predestined to become a great chef. His parents met at the restaurant in the Brufani Hotel, which still exists in Perugia. His father was a waiter in the hotel dining room, and his mother the young private chef at the residence of the owners of the hotel.
Carlo Seccarelli and Alma married and opened a trattoria, Girarrosto (rotisserie), with a partner from whom they soon separated. In two years, they sold their part of the trattoria to the partner and opened La Lanterna, a more elegant restaurant, which they owned from 1953 to 1984. It was there that Franco learned what a kitchen was. "I was in elementary school, and when I wasn't in class, I was in the kitchen and she was teaching me; I remember that she taught me to make mayonnaise using two forks," Franco said, gesturing as though vigorously whisking the eggs and oil.
But his mother not only taught him her cooking secrets, she also revealed the secrets of the business, such as purchasing. Alma knew who was who among her purveyors and by a mere touch she could gauge the freshness of a cut of beef or veal. "My mother was something; she made me go every Saturday 30 kilometers outside Perugia to see a shepherd named Matteo, who lived with his sheep. to buy cheese, because the man made an unequalled Pecorino." Keeping his eyes open in the kitchen, burning his fingers. cutting himself with the knives, Franco learned to cook, little by little, with his mother and his Aunt Anna Maria. And equally important: "My mother taught me to eat."
Military service in Itay took Franco away from the kitchen for a time and also out of the technical school where he studied telecommunications. But cooking was his vocation. Soon he was working in a hotel in Perugia and catering suppers and activities on his own, until an interesting opportunity presented itself: to go to England to work as a first assistant at the Westley Court Hotel in Birmingham. "It was a big hotel that did a lot of weddings and very little creative cuisine, but I was already 32 or 33 years old, and I had to learn quickly what I had not learned in culinary school... and to improve my English."
Meanwhile, Franco had met a young Puerto Rican student in 1987, who convinced him to come seek his fortune in Puerto Rico. In the Caribbean a new world of colors, sounds, customs. and tastes awaited the Italian who had only left Umbria to go to gray Britain. Here in San Juan, he soon met Juanita. a marvelous Dominican cook who had a contagious laugh and worked along side him in the small kitchen of Amadeus in Old San Juan. Juanita had worked early in her career in the kitchens of Ali Oli, the splendid restaurant owned by chef Alfredo Ayala.
So the young Italian joined the San Juan fraternity of chefs. and. from one day to the next, Franco switched from milk-fed veal, Umbrian lentils. truffles, and porcini mushrooms to guava and passion fruit sauces, pigeon peas and conch.
But in Italy he had learned the most important lesson: "My mother gave me the best sort of schooling: she trained me to taste." I have never known a great chef who did not have the heightened sense of taste to which Franco alludes, as it is something that one either has or does not have. Franco has it, and it is evident in his cooking - this and something else. Each time I ask a great cook what is most important in cooking, I always hear: "A sense of proportion." Franco expresses it another way: "Cooking is all about balance. It is not good if you can't recognize each of the ingredients that have gone into a dish. Cooking is simplicity." This is reflected in the use Franco makes of aromatic herbs. "If I use rosemary, I don't add anything else. If I put in basil, it is only basil. I do not mix flavors and aromas". His lentil soup is a tribute to simplicity, and to reverence, which is an ingredient he considers superb. Franco's respect for the quality of ingredients is such that he affirms, "I never use a griddle because you can never clean it well, and it becomes saturated with unpleasant odors. Fish, poultry and meat I always do on the grill, in the oven, or steamed. And I only use Italian virgin olive oil."
