His family used their Melbourne garage to bottle homemade passata, pickles and booze, but the wine "would turn out crap" and end up brutally alcoholic. So Vargetto's Sicilian mother would transform the failed wine into vinegar.
"The red wine vinegar would make you sweat, like seriously, you wouldn't have to go to the gym," says the chef behind . Its tart flavour "was eye-crunching" in its intensity.
There isn't anything so punishing at , his new restaurant with Maurice Terzini () in Melbourne's CBD.
But it's inspired by his family's spirit of being resourceful with food. This of being creative with the little you have is something Italian migrants are familiar with.
"Everything was house-made," Vargetto says, recalling his upbringing. "We'd grow oregano and hang it along the side of the garage."
The necessity of drying your own herbs – instead of buying them – wasn't something his non-Italian neighbours in understood. One of them actually assumed his family was part of the criminal underworld. "She thought we were drying marijuana".
Such childhood memories are the backbone of Cucina Povera Vino Vero. Maurice Terzini's smoky recollections of his father barbecuing mortadella has inspired one dish, while a playful 'tinned tuna' tribute predates the ingredient's domination in office lunch salads – it's a callback to a time, four decades ago, when tuna was dismissed as bait rather than food, but Vargetto's mum understood its potential. She'd gently poach tuna in seawater with fennel, olive oil and orange. "She'd try to create what she used to have back home," says Vargetto.
The Italian-Australian tradition of turning the garage into the second kitchen – to produce bootleg wine, sausages, sugo and preserves – is also a significant influence on the restaurant.
Vargetto's family garage was filled with jars of bottled zucchini, passata, jams and other things conserved from their fruit-rich yard. "Summertime was the busiest time," he says. "We would make our own semi-dried or dried tomatoes, which would go on the roof. That was me up the ladder."
But Melbourne weather made sun-drying the tomatoes a headache – especially when the summer heat gave way to sudden rain. "You'd have to run up the top and bring them down," he says.
The family also left tomato paste to bake on top of the roof, in big vats that weren't altered too much. "You put salt and a net on the top," he says and that was it.
ITALIAN HOMEMADE PASSATA
Tomatoes ready: What Passata Day means to me
At his godfather's farm in , they'd slaughter a pig to make sausages and more – much, much more. "Everything would be used, from the trotters to the head," he says. The family would cook a 'gelatina' from the pig's head, turning it into a terrine that was flavoured with pistachio. His mum convinced him this was 'ham'.
"But then after a while, I went, 'oh no, no, it's not ham. It's bloody pig's head!'"
The drive to the farm was meant to only take an hour, but the trip would end up being three times as long, since his parents were constantly stopping to pick mushrooms or other ingredients spotted by the side of the road.
Their cucina povera attitude of maximising what was available wasn't limited just to food, though.
I've still got my mum's last pickles that she did in 2008. I reckon if I opened them and ate them, they'd still be okay to eat.
"My mum would never throw away anything," says Vargetto. The chef recalls his excitement about opening a freezer in the garage and seeing an ice-cream tub, only to open the lid and discover chicken broth inside. Everything – from old containers to their kitchen equipment – was kept for as long as possible. Vargetto remembers their Kelvinator fridge, which was around 35 years old. "When my parents passed away – my mum passed away in 2008 and my dad a couple of years ago – the bloody Kelvinator was still going!" he says.
That's not the only thing that outlasted them.
"I've still got my mum's last pickles that she did in 2008," he says. "I reckon if I opened them and ate them, they'd still be okay to eat."
Her legacy lives on in recipes that have inspired Cucina Povera Vino Vero's menu (see the pasta and lentil soup and the braised goat dish). Then there's the dessert sparked by Vargetto’s days of playing under-15s soccer. His parents were too busy working multiple jobs to watch him play, but his mother did once see a game and was shocked when the kids were handed a measly quarter of an orange each at halftime. "She said, 'I'll bring you a bowl of pasta next week if I make it'."
There have been so many immigrant waves that have come through, but we all share the same story.
In her honour, he's poached oranges in a heavy sugar syrup, until they're over-cooked and intensely zingy and sweet. Bite into it and you'll also get a taste of Modica-style chocolate – a brittle, rough Sicilian chocolate that's famously made to an . "Half-time oranges, I call them."
While the restaurant is about cucina povera, it also reflects "how Australia became this melting pot for all the different types of people who came to our shores to make a better life for themselves", the chef says.
"There have been so many immigrant waves that have come through, but we all share the same story."
Wednesday–Saturday 6pm–11:30pm
Thursday–Friday 12pm– 2:30pm
