Annalisa Dall'Olio

Anima in Cucina blogger

I'm Annalisa, I live in Bologna and work in insurance.

When I was small, every weekend was spent with relatives in the countryside where there were loads of animals: goats, rabbits, dogs, cats and hens. I often saw pigs being slaughtered (as was normal on a farm) but also rabbits, goats and hens. On top of this, my father was a hunter and I often "had" to help him holding his prey so he could clean it properly. I couldn't eat any of these animals as I'd seen them alive, but we all know that once it was normal to force kids to eat against their will. However, growing up I could never appreciate meat based meals, even though some had become part of my diet, due mostly to habit. When I was about 30 I went on holiday abroad to a touristic village, where unawares I ate rotten meat, cooked in so many spicy herbs that I didn't even notice. Moral of the story: 2 days of colic and for 6 months after re-entering Italy, even just the sight of meat turned my stomach.

When I was better, I met some people who had chosen a vegan philosophy of life, some opened an eatery, others a countryhouse, I myself started to visit fairs in this sector, exploring ways of cooking and expanding my horizons and I too started to be part of this world.

The strange thing is that when I thought of a veg based diet, I imagined a world full of privations but instead it's an incredible source of innovative recipes….obviously you need to apply yourself steadily but I eat better and no one suffers.

If I have to find something negative, it's that my social life has changed, because lots know recipes that don't use meat but when others find out that a vegan or vegetarian is coming to dinner they're paralyed and creativity dies...