herself » ( Roberta Sudbrack , Best Female Chef 2015 in Latin America ); « I ’ m happy she ’ ll be the one to represent us . Bocuse d ' Or tests skills and knowledge under pressure and in little time . Even the best chef can fail , you just need to make one mistake » ( Thomas Troisgros , of Olympe in Rio de Janeiro . Thomas is the son of Claude , the brother of Michel , that is to say the person continuing the myth of his father Pierre ’ s Maison Troisgros in Roanne , France ).
In other words , it seems there ’ s no doubt the girl is excellent . We had a different doubt , however : could it be , with that name , “ Giovanna Grossi ”… « True , I have Italian origins - she confirms to Identità Golose - The Grossi family comes from the Marche , my grandfather Antonio ’ s family lived in San Severino , his father was a farmer . They were then forced to emigrate , like many others , not only Italians ( Giovanna ’ s mother ’ s surname is Mayer , with clear German origins ). At the time , Brazil was looking for workers for coffee plantations ; so the Grossi family sold all they had and travelled to Sao Paolo . It was very hard , the trip by ship took 30 days . My grandmother told me that one of her two sisters , the youngest , didn ’ t make it , she died during the journey across the Atlantic Ocean because the ship was very dirty and there wasn ’ t enough food for everyone . Many others shared the same destiny . My granmother ’ s and grandfather ’ s families already knew each other , they came from the same village ; but my grandparents only got married when they were already here , in Brazil . After all , one must remember the largest Italian community outside of Italy is here in San Paulo .
Do you have relatives in Italy ? « I know I have an aunt who still lives in Italy but I ’ ve never met her . My brother Bruno spent many months in Florence , last year , he ’ s also a chef and wanted to learn real Italian cuisine and the