When Marcella DiChiara was 10, the “typical ‘80s latchkey kid” would come home from school and start cooking.
In her family’s Connecticut kitchen, young Marcella would pretend she was on a cooking show while making anything from Sicilian sauces to stuffed artichokes for family dinner. “I would act it out,” she said with a laugh.
Now a Franklin-based marketing director and mother of two, DiChiara was on the beach in her parents’ native Sicily last summer, when she got an Instagram alert. A casting director wanted the self-taught @bostonhomecooking to be on a cooking competition show.
Growing up, DiChiara and her three siblings spent every summer in Sicily, visiting family. While she showcases recipes on Instagram — from cooking linguine alle vongole or making homemade pasta with her mother, to sharing her tips for Sicilian fried zucchini — she’d never cooked competitively (or professionally) in her life.
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By October, DiChiara was headed to Nashville with her family’s Sicilian recipes to film and compete on PBS’s “The Great American Recipe.”
Season three premieres June 17, with returning host Alejandra Ramos. “Recipe” aims to highlight eight home cooks from around the US, each bringing their family’s roots and culture to the kitchen, according to PBS. We called DiChiara, 46, back at home after filming, to talk about her family, Sicilian roots, and her first cooking show.
Q. How did cooking become such a big part of your home life growing up?
A. I’m completely homegrown. No formal culinary training at all, other than the traditions passed down to me. Cooking was a family affair, all hands on deck. From a very young age, I was helping my mom start dinner. We’re very much tradition-based with holidays, so there are dishes we make every year, recipes passed down from generation to generation.
Q. What are a few examples?
A. Cucuzza stew is one. It’s a Sicilian snake squash, a type of zucchini grown in Sicily. However, I think most Sicilian gardeners have them in their gardens. Definitely St. Joseph’s day pastries.
Q. What’s your first memory of your family’s cooking?
A. The smell of garlic and oil emitting through my house, especially on Sundays, because that’s when my mother made her Sunday sauce. I have a core memory of helping my mom bread chicken cutlets, dipping the chicken in the flour and the egg and then the breadcrumbs, when I was 5.
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Q. What did you love about it at age 5?
A. The outcome. [Laughs.] I loved food. And I enjoyed the positive affirmations and feedback from creating dishes people loved.
Q. What was your grandparents’ cooking like in Sicily?
A. You have your regular kitchen in your house, and then you have your Campania kitchen, which is your farmhouse kitchen — no electricity, extremely rustic. Just cooking on coal fires, or hot lava rocks from Mount Etna. That was pretty common if there was activity on the mountain, because the volcanic rocks create such a distinct flavor for meats. It’s something people took advantage of when it was a viable option.
It’s very hot in Sicily. Cooking is a team effort. The whole island shuts down for afternoon siesta and lunch. That’s their primary meal of the day.
Q. What would your family make for lunch?
A. It’s very seafood-forward in the summer, so you want to take advantage of what’s in season. Pasta dishes that incorporate fish. Lots of squash, tomatoes, eggplant. Grilled swordfish, grilled prawns. You start with your pasta or risotto, then meat, then dessert, then fruit, then coffee. [Laughs.] It’s a production. But after that meal, it’s the best nap you’ll ever have.
Q. Was there something you wanted to showcase or teach viewers about Sicilian food on the show?
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A. There are a lot of stereotypes people associate with Sicily and Italy, so I wanted to showcase the culture through its food, as opposed to stereotypes people might get through media and film. But really, it was an opportunity for me to say thank you to my parents for the sacrifices they made, being immigrants, coming to a new country, not knowing anything about the culture or language, starting from scratch. I took this show as an opportunity to thank them.
Q. What was your favorite part of being on the show?
A. By far, meeting the other contestants. I learned a lot. I learned about Asian cuisine from Mae [Chandran of Malibu, Calif.]. I’m not a strong griller in terms of technique — Tim [Harris, of Fort Mill, S.C.] is lights-out, the best griller I’ve ever met. I had never even heard of fufu, which is a signature dish of Adjo [Honsou], who hails from Togo.
Q. What was your favorite thing that you tried?
A. I had an oxtail stew so robust and rich in flavor, I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.
Q. What’s your go-to meal to make at home?
A. The bar is really high now. [Laughs.] But I love seasonality. In summer, I source from my own garden. My favorite dish is probably grilled swordfish with a mint pistachio pesto. I love making homemade pasta, because that’s a family affair, and everybody can be involved.
And then, of course, just my signature Sunday sauce. We don’t call it gravy. Gravy is brown, and it’s what you put on turkey. “Gravy” is not an Italian thing that I know of — I think that was something that became Americanized.
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Q. What are your favorite Italian restaurants in Boston?
A. Coppa in the South End; their bone marrow is incredible. We go to Providence more than Boston, believe it or not. Il Massimo would be my favorite there. The linguine and clams, or any seafood medley pasta dish — that’s my jam.
“The Great American Recipe” season three premieres June 17 at 9 p.m. on PBS.
Interview was edited and condensed. Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@gmail.com. She tweets @laurendaley1.