When news started to break about the global ripple of coronavirus, I couldn’t help worry about Italy’s nonnas. The country is now suffering from one of the worst outbreaks of Covid-19 in the world; as of press time, it has logged more than 162,000 cases and the death toll has risen past an unimaginable 21,000.

With the elderly being especially susceptible, my thoughts went to all the gray-haired matriarchs whose kitchen clanking you could hear from the streets off Rome’s Campo de Fiori, the ones serving hand-cut tagliatelle by the mountainful in Alto Adige’s ski towns, and the women who single-handedly perpetuate ancient recipes in Sicily.