Chef Jacquie Kelly parlays her cooking expertise into culinary tourism

Jacquie Peccina Kelly, founder of StrEATS of Philly Food Tours, at Virtù Cucina Abruzzese on East Passyunk Avenue in Philadelphia. | PHOTO COURTESY OF JACQUIE PECCINA KELLY

Jacquie Peccina Kelly grew up in South Philadelphia, Bologna and Abruzzo, and that’s why she’s said that she’s “been spoiled with good food since birth, between my mother’s Abruzzese cooking and my father’s Bolognese cooking. I knew really good food at a very, very young age.”

Yet she was 21 before she tried “real cooking,” 26 before she was serious. Maybe the delay was because her mother didn’t let her kids in the kitchen. “We could smell it. We could eat it. We had to clean up.” When dating her now-husband, Kevin, she realized he ate only sandwiches and pizza. So she started to cook “healthy and light” for him, also influenced by (gasp!) French styles.

After her first career in real estate development, she went whole hog into a culinary career, training at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College after they married and next running catering companies until they had children. She later provided private cooking lessons and led tours of Italy and France.

Since 2010, she has been conducting food tours of two lip-smacking Philadelphia destinations: the Italian Market and East Passyunk Avenue.

Her Northern and Southern Italian heritages played differing roles in the success of her businesses. “My love to learn, to be a student and run my own business really comes from the North,” she said. “That’s all Northern Italian, being around my grandmother, my aunt, my uncle, my father (who spoke seven languages). And then my social skills, my hospitality, the ability to see what my guests really want, that comes from Abruzzo. Because they want to be perfect hosts.”

Her Abruzzese hospitality also included the observation that we must be somehow related, because she has Mammarellas in her family tree, and my ancestry is Abruzzese.

When Kelly was 3, the family moved to Bologna. When she was 7, they moved back to Philadelphia. When she was 10, they moved to Abruzzo, and it was a memorable year living on a large vineyard – plus orchards, olive groves and other crops – that had been in the family for centuries.

When she thinks of her mother, the first story involves porchetta, with rosemary and garlic, which led to the famous Philadelphia roast pork sandwich, she observes on her website.

When she thinks of her father’s mother, the first story involves polenta. “She had this huge table with special boards. When she made polenta, she’d put it all on the edge, and every so often she’d have a different topping. A Bolognese sauce made from scratch. If it was mushroom season, she’d have a mushroom sauce. Truffles – she was the truffle queen. And butter and sage. I’ve never seen or experienced anything like that.”

The North and South blended when her grandmother taught her mother how to make tortellini. “My mother makes them every year and gives them out as presents. And we have tortellini on Christmas Day. That’s the beginning of our meal. Tons of great memories there.”

Today, through StrEATS of Philly Food Tours, she offers experiences and memories via four food tours listed on www.streatsofphillyfoodtours.com and custom tours (including ones in Italian). Her busiest season runs October through mid-January, with as many as four tours a day, six days a week.

The standard tours run two to three hours and cost $85 to $225. Tours could include samples, a progressive meal, discounts on purchases, tips on the proper way to enjoy (and pronounce) espresso and, when available, conversations with the business owners.

Kelly has lifelong friendships with the operators of Di Bruno Brothers, Isgro Pastries and Fante’s Kitchen Shop, and she also has relationships with purveyors of Jewish lox, oils and vinegars, meats and Mexican fare. Half the Italian Market is now Mexican, she said, and she likes to compare how the Italians who established the market were primarily from Mezzogiorno, and the Mexicans who followed came primarily from just one state, Puebla. “We affectionately call that area Puebla-delphia, and it is literally right across the street.”

At home, her family culinary favorites are all over the map. For a birthday, her son might ask for rack of lamb, and her daughter would be satisfied as long as the meal includes roasted peppers. Her husband would ask for tacos. And if her mother is cooking, Kelly might ask for pasta e fagioli or pasta e patate. “They’re comfort foods,” she said. “They bring me back to when I was a kid.”