Why Exactly Is Ina Garten Called The Barefoot Contessa?

In terms of unknown facts about Ina Garten, a lot of fans would consider the origin of her moniker "The Barefoot Contessa" to be a stumper. It's a title shared by her long-running TV show and one of her many cookbooks, but where did it come from? The story is actually really adorable and speaks to Garten's unconventional path to stardom as a food maven.

A quick pass through Google tells us that "The Barefoot Contessa" is a 1958 noir romance starring Humphrey Bogart and the luminous Ava Gardner. The fact that the movie's title is twinning with Garten's sobriquet is no coincidence. In 1978, Garten left her previous career as a White House-based nuclear budget analyst and purchased a specialty food shop in East Hampton. The name of the store when she bought it? You guessed it: The Barefoot Contessa. 

Turns out that the previous owner was a fan of the film. On her website, Garten described how she felt the name was "both elegant and earthy," appealing to her personal aesthetic and preference for food. As Garten steadily built her culinary empire, the name stuck close to her. The rest, as they say, was history.

Ina Garten learned to cook later in life, taking lessons in Greenwich Village in New York and falling in love with the art of crafting beautiful and delicious food. Garten's mother, Florence, was a dietician who was obsessed with healthy eating and didn't leave much room for her family to appreciate decadence at the table. It's a stark contrast with Garten's eventual culinary persona, based as it is on a cozy scenario in which food is in abundance and the pantry is always full.

Similarly, a contessa, or Italian countess, evokes images of a wealthy woman who wants for nothing. A barefoot contessa, building on that, seems to conjure an image of a beautiful aristocrat in a flowing gown, her toes sinking into the sun-warmed earth as she strolls through a verdant vineyard in full flower. For Ina Garten, who spun the straw of a deprived childhood into gold by way of a professional image dedicated to the scrumptious, rich, and satiating, it's little wonder that a name imbued with lush imagery was attractive. Nowadays, Garten is a byword for sage cooking tips that every home chef should know, served up with a generous helping of love and warmth. When she shares her wealth of knowledge on the secret world of delicious food, we soak up the Barefoot Contessa's largesse.