Lindsay Marie Morris

Mangia was one of the first Italian words Solae' Riddle learned from her mother, Silvana Phillips. For her, to this day, it means so much more than its literal translation, "eat." 

 

"If you know anything about the Italian culture, food is their love language, and there is no better time spent than around the table," says Solae'.

Food has been Mamma Silvana's way of sharing her culture as someone who had emigrated to the U.S. from Sommatino, Sicily, as a young girl. Her passion inspired Solae' to seek to preserve her mother's recipes along with the memories they carried. 

What started as a pet project led to the ladies launching Mamma Mangia, a destination for people who love to eat, a digital brand that feeds the soul.

Solae' recently shared with me how Mamma Mangia started, their recipe method, ways they engage with their audience, their most celebrated achievement, future plans, advice for new bloggers, and more.

 

 

What inspired you to start Mamma Mangia?

In our family, recipes have been passed down only through stories and lessons in the kitchen. If you are lucky, you may be able to find a list of ingredients (without measurements or instructions), but that would be a rarity. 

As a new mom, I felt a push to preserve our family recipes, memories, and culture. So, in 2017, I approached Mamma Silvana with the wild idea that we should write down all of our Italian family recipes. At first, she was taken aback by the idea of writing down these sacred recipes. To her, they are so much more than just a list of ingredients and directions. They are memories of her mother and father, who have long since passed away, memories of a life that is tangible only through our food. The thought that someone else may have access to these sacred recipes felt scary to Mamma Silvana. 

After much convincing at the benefit this would bring to our future posterity, Mamma Silvana agreed to join me in making a family cookbook. We gathered recipes from as many of her eight siblings as we could and pieced together recipes from her mother and father. It quickly became so much more than just another cookbook. We decided to include pedigree charts, our family's immigration story, pictures, and details about the lives of this generation that have never before been written down. Each member of the family had a page dedicated to the details of their lives so that one day when my children make a recipe from this book, they can know who these people are and connect to a part of their own history. 

It took five years to finish our family heirloom cookbook. It was an experience we could never fully put into words. For me, it changed me. It filled a void in my soul that I didn't realize was there. It created a connection to a group of people I didn't know in this life, but somehow they were a part of me. Each recipe brought a memory for Mamma Silvana that also connected her to her own past and ancestors. It was a reminder that although she is now an American citizen, she will always be Sicilian. That her immigration changed her life and the life of her posterity, but her past is just as influential. We often talk about having roots in Sicily, and those roots have become deeper and stronger than ever before. 

After we finished the cookbook, we had an overwhelming feeling that this wasn't the end of our journey. We knew we needed to share this experience with others and encourage them to connect to their own "roots." In August of 2020, we decided to launch a little page on Instagram we called Mamma Mangia. Here, we share our family recipes and culture, but our true hope is that it will encourage others to start a similar journey of their own.

 

 

Mamma Silvana shares her memories.

Describe your recipe development process.

Many of the recipes we share are not "new" but rather family recipes that we have been making for generations. That being said, when Mamma Silvana moved to Utah, there were not a lot of options for Italian food items that were available in Sicily or even on the East Coast. So, she started making her own versions so that she could continue to enjoy the food she loved so much. 

Mamma Silvana has an impeccable sense of taste and smell and can dissect nearly any food simply by eating and smelling it. It is like a superpower. When creating recipes, she always knows what she wants and how it should taste and, therefore, does not usually require much testing or perfecting. 

As for me, I love to create new recipes, and though I have been gifted with the ability to create recipes, my powers are not nearly as refined as hers. When I create a new recipe, I always send it to Mamma Silvana for her stamp of approval! 

 

Mamma Mangia's sourdough pasta

 

Your recipes often include unique twists, like sourdough pasta. How do you balance innovation with tradition?

Our sourdough pasta recipe was the first recipe to really go "viral." It was during the pandemic when everyone was experimenting with sourdough. 

The reason we created the recipe was for personal reasons. Both Mamma Silvana and I have dealt with different health issues that have required adjustments in our diet. As Italians, giving up pasta is always the hardest. In our journey, we learned that if we were to make sourdough pasta and ferment it with an active sourdough starter for 72 hours, it would reduce the gluten content by nearly 90% and also add nutritional benefits. So we ran with it, creating a "healthier," more digestible, and yet completely delicious version of homemade Italian pasta. 

We recognize it is not "traditional," but sometimes, you have to move from tradition slightly in order to continue to eat the things you love. Many recipes that we have shared with a unique twist are born from needing a "better-for-you" option.

 

How do you engage with your audience?

We are truly blessed with the best audience that only gives us positivity and encouragement. Many of our followers are looking to us for inspiration and recipes to connect to their culture and ancestors. Though we have been hesitant at times to share our family recipes that feel so special to us, we are often reminded by our audience about the way in which our recipes have blessed their lives. We have received dozens of messages from people who have searched for lost recipes from their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents with no luck, only to find that our recipes are almost identical. This type of feedback helps to remind us of our "why."  

 

Can you share a particular achievement you are especially proud of?

The biggest achievement for us isn't the number of followers or sales received but rather the connections that have been made. Mamma Mangia has brought us closer together as a family as we cook and create together and has introduced us to many members of our audience who have become real-life friends. 

 

What are your future plans?

The first family heirloom cookbook we made was our inspiration for Mamma Mangia, but it is not something we can sell to the public as it contains a lot of personal information and recipes that aren't ours to share. That being said, we have had such a demand from our audience for a similar product that they can purchase. We are currently working on a cookbook with all of Mamma Silvana's recipes. It will include over 150 recipes, high-quality photos, personal stories, and hundreds of cooking tips and tricks throughout. We are hoping to launch the cookbook in the spring of 2025.

 

An heirloom cookbook project started the journey.

 

What advice would you give someone looking to start their own food blog or recipe website?

Understand your "why!" Why are you doing it? What are you hoping the outcome will be? Who do you want to connect with or inspire? People love real life and real people. If you know your "why" and have a fire within you, others will want to follow along and learn from you. Be genuine, be yourself, and remember your "why." 

 

What do you hope your audience takes away?

We have always wanted to inspire others to start their own journey in connecting with their family and loved ones through food. It doesn't matter what your ethnicity and/or background is. Your family has a story to tell. 

Food and recipes have a unique way of telling their story through smell, taste, and tradition that can not be found in any other form. It is our hope that we will influence others to have a desire to gather their family and loved ones around their table and share their love and traditions through food. 

 

 

Mamma Silvana and Solae' enjoy a pizza.

 

 

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Between Sicily's cannoli, cakes, and gelato-stuffed brioche, the island offers plenty of tempting sweet treats. But not everyone can partake.

 

Kasia Bos, who suffers from gluten intolerance, was tired of the lack of choices for people like herself. So, in 2022, she and her partner, co-founder Diego Di Giovanni, launched Terved, a Catania, Sicily-based company committed to not only meeting dietary needs but also exceeding taste and quality expectations. 

I caught up with Kasia and Diego to discuss Terved and its inspiration, the challenges the young entrepreneurs faced, how they balance tradition with necessary ingredients, how they build relationships, what Terved's future looks like, and their advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

 

 

What inspired Terved?

Kasia: I had gotten prescribed a gluten-free diet because of problems with my intestine. So my doctor advised me to go gluten-free, and from there, it started this new world of gluten-free. 

Diego met me a little bit after I had started this gluten-free diet. We were both young, and we wanted to do something. We thought, "Why don't we do something about the problem many people have, which is that it's still impossible to be gluten-free?"  We turned it into something productive and beautiful.  

 

Tell us about your product offerings.

Diego: We focus on the more regional and typical products, such as the cannoli and brioche we use for ice cream. But then the demand and the market also asked us for more and different products. We also developed products such as donuts that are more international. We made muffins and mini tarts with pistachio and apricot jam. Right now, we are trying to evolve and adapt to the market demand to satisfy and cover all the possible scenarios that we can. 
 

What challenges did you face starting your business?

Diego: We started very young. I was 22, she was 18. So, we both didn't have much life experience to deal with failures. So the first nos were very hard to take. Also, it was difficult to co-work and have two minds, two ideas that had to meld together at the end of the day. 

The most difficult, from my point of view, is the financial part because business knowledge is something that we managed to get from studying from other people as well as from experimenting, from failures, and so on. But the financial part is tricky because to make money, you have to invest money. And when you are so young, you don't have money. No one wants to give you money. 

 

Terved Co-founders Kasia Bos and Diego Di Giovanni

 

What is your process for developing products?

Kasia: When we started, we thought, "We are in Italy. He's Sicilian. So what can we do? Where can we start? What do people need?" So we came up with the concept of cannoli and the brioche, the most typical Sicilian products you can find. 

We already had a small community of people who followed us during the beginning of our journey. So we would try recipes with them. People who had celiac connected with us, and we asked them, "Is this an interesting product? Could this be a better product?" We did a little quiz. 

The difficult part was actually making that product happen. So we went from making recipes at home to going to specialists who could actually make those products last. From there, it's just been about spreading the product as much as possible. 

 

How do you ensure there's no cross-contamination?

Diego: All the products are individually packed. So even when they arrive from the laboratory to the final destination, we make sure that they are one hundred percent safe.

  

Kasia: At the end of the day, it goes from the laboratory to the hands of the consumer without getting touched by anyone. 

 

How do you balance traditional recipes with the need for gluten-free ingredients?

Diego: Of course, the flavor is not the same because when you change the flour, you change both taste, texture, the proofing of the product, the softness, the air—a lot of things. But our goal is to make a gluten-free version that reminds us of the traditional products. We are trying to develop a product that is as close as possible to the original one. 

 

How do you build relationships with clients, customers, partners, and distributors?

Diego: It depends on where these customers are located, but let's say that from a broader vision, we have a first approach on email. We use LinkedIn a lot. We introduce our company and what we do and send a catalog and a company presentation. Then, if we make a call, for example, to discuss a possible partnership, we send samples. If they're here in Sicily, we go meet them.

In our packaging, we include a little bit of our story and how we started. On social media, we try to entertain and talk about, for example, what we ate for dinner. We also try to attend events and fairs so we can meet customers. 

 

What's been the most rewarding part of this journey?

Kasia: For me, at least, it's actually having a face-to-face with the final consumer. When the actual client comes to you or writes a message to you and says, "Oh my God, your brioches are amazing!" 

The whole point of doing this is connecting with those people. In person, it's even better because once or twice, we were walking on the street, and out of nowhere, someone popped up and said, "Please never stop. You're amazing!" 

Diego: That's very heartwarming and beautiful. I would also like to add that I was astonished when a company reached out to us and told us they would like to bring our cannoli to Boston. 

We started from Catania, a small city of 200,000 citizens. Now, we are bringing our products to Boston, Australia, and the UK, and it happened so fast. We have another possibility for Miami and another company in Boston. Having your product so far away from your hometown is almost unbelievable.

 

Terved brioches on display at a supermarket.

 

What does Terved's future look like?

Kasia: We want to create more products and products that maybe haven't been seen before. We want to create more options. Right now, our focus is on supermarkets to really get in the hands of as many people as possible with higher quality products.

 

Diego: We have so many products that we could create. Another thing that we are trying to do is bring to supermarkets not just another gluten-free company but a premium gluten-free company. Our goal is to create a variety that is not currently in the market, at least here in Italy.

 

Kasia: The U.S. is way more advanced in that supermarkets carry 20 different kinds of gluten-free breads and 50 types of cookies. In Italy, it's really bad. You see two companies where there should be more options.

 

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Diego: We started with no experience, with no money, with nothing. We were very naive and a little bit reckless.

Surround yourself with experienced people. Try to listen because we gained knowledge from people who knew the business and knew more about life. Don't be scared of losing friends or sleep. Eventually, it's all going to be rewarded.

 

What experience do you want for your customers?

Diego: We just want them to feel listened to, not to be excluded.

Kasia: This is why we started, right? For them not to feel excluded. So when they eat, it's not like they have to think about it. It is just there. We want people to feel at ease.

 

 

 

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