Erminia Motika, the mother of celebrity chef and author Lidia Bastianich, passed away on Feb. 14 at the age of 100, and in honor of Women’s History Month ISDA is paying tribute to the late matriarch and her famous daughter.

Family Roots in Pula

Lidia was born in Pola, Istria, on February 21, 1947. It was then part of Italy, but a post-war settlement agreement in September of that same year gave ownership of the territory to the communist country, Yugoslavia (Istria is now part of Croatia). The Istrian peninsula had a large Italian population, many of whom fled to Italy at that time. Lidia and her family continued living there for nine years under the Marshal Tito regime. Erminia was a school teacher and her husband, Vittorio, had a small trucking business, according to Entertainment Central Pittsburgh.

Under Tito the name of the town was changed from Pola to the Slavic Pula; the family also had their name changed by the government from Matticchio to Motika. At one point the government took one of Vittorio’s two trucks saying he only needed one truck in a communist land.

Fleeing Communism

In 1956, growing weary of life in a communist dictatorship, the family carried out an escape plan. Erminia took Lidia and Franco by train to Trieste, Italy under the guise of visiting an ill relative. Vittorio had to stay behind as one member of a family traveling outside the country had to remain behind to ensure the return of the others. Vittorio had his own escape plan, and the family soon reunited in Trieste and lived with a relative before they were sent to live at the city’s refugee camp, San Sabba. They would live there for two years.

The Path to America

In 2009, Lidia offered this memory to PBS:

“Erminia, my mother, is my unsung hero, who at the age of thirty-seven decided with her husband to take their two children, me Lidia (then 12) and Franco my brother (then 15), and flee communism. To achieve ethnic and religious freedom, she guided us, comforted us and worked cleaning jobs, even being an educated teacher, so we could have extra food and shoes during the two years we awaited our visa in a political refugee camp. We resided in a long hall where every family’s small square space was divided by sheets hanging from a line. Many a night, while she thought we were sleeping, my mother would cry and ask my father whether the choice they made was the right one. Coming to America sponsored by the Catholic Charities and being inserted in the American life, she represents many an immigrant mother who worked from early morning until late at night to create a new life of freedom and opportunity for her children. It was never about her. It was always about her family. Saluting her, I salute all the immigrant mothers that travel the world looking for freedom and opportunity for their children. Our family was ever so greatly blessed by arriving on American shores.”

The family was relocated to New Jersey and later Queens, where they overcame the language barrier and flourished and opened a pair of restaurants.

In 1981, Lidia’s father died, and the family sold their two Queens restaurants and purchased a small Manhattan brownstone containing a pre-existing restaurant on the East Side of Manhattan near the 59th Street Bridge. They converted it into what would eventually become their flagship restaurant, Felidia (a contraction of “Felice” and “Lidia”).

After liquidating nearly every asset they had to cover $750,000 worth of renovations, Felidia finally opened to near-universal acclaim from their loyal following of food critics, including The New York Times, which gave Felidia three stars. One of Felidia’s chefs was not Italian. He was Puerto-Rico-born David Torres, known at the restaurant as Davide’. He died of throat cancer in 1996.

Lidia has published 16 books, opened multiple restaurants across the country — including Lidia’s Pittsburgh and Eataly, and she has starred on several public television shows, where her mother, affectionally known as “Grandma,” became a fixture.

To these two beautiful and upstanding women, we have but one world: salute!

 

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