She left Romania in 2004, departing from the Jiu Valley, which she says was 'slowly but surely dying,' and went on to become a nurse in an intensive care unit in Italy. She had an indefinite employment contract and a system that offered her stability. More than a decade later, however, Marcela Pricop chose to make the journey in the opposite direction, back to Romania.

Here, together with her husband, she started almost from scratch, with a farm, a few animals and plenty of challenges. She taught herself how to turn milk into yoghurt, kefir and cheese and eventually took the idea a step further: bringing what she produced on the farm directly to the plate of those who came through her door. Today, the local gastronomic establishment she runs in Vrancea aims to offer more than just food: it seeks to recreate the taste of a genuine rural household.

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The story begins long before the farm. In Romania, Marcela Pricop had worked in the healthcare system at a family doctor's practice. In 2004, the lack of prospects in the Jiu Valley prompted her to look for work in Italy. Having arrived there at the end of July, she was unable to start work immediately because Romania was not yet a member of the European Union and she had to complete the professional registration formalities and pass a language examination. However, she was not prepared to sit around doing nothing.

'I left because I was living in the Jiu Valley and it was already an area that was slowly but surely dying. When I arrived in Italy, I already had a job secured but I could not start until I had registered with the professional college and taken the language examination. I arrived at the end of July and had to wait until September because August was the holiday month. But I could not stay at home doing nothing, so I went to the hospital and asked whether I could volunteer, partly because that would also help me learn the language faster. I went straight from a family doctor's office to an intensive care unit. It was a complete change of environment, but it was a department where I learnt a great deal and I do not regret a single second of it,' Marcela Pricop recalls.

Her years in Italy brought her a profession, financial stability and a personal experience that would later weigh heavily in her decision to return home. The move back was not sudden. Between 2012 and 2014, following several miscarriages and then the birth of her son, the centre of her family's life gradually shifted towards Romania.

Marcela also remembers how the Italian system protected her when, while working in intensive care and facing a pregnancy considered high-risk, she was removed from a potentially hazardous working environment. Giving up a permanent employment contract was not, however, an easy decision.

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'It was difficult to say 'that's it, I'm going back' when you were leaving a permanent job and had no certainty about what you would find at home. We went through quite a long period, between 2012 and 2014, until Robert was born. I worked in an intensive care unit where there were biological risks and, as soon as you became pregnant, you were removed from that environment. In my case, the pregnancy was already considered high-risk and they sent me home, telling me to complete all the necessary paperwork and try to carry the pregnancy to term. My contract in Italy ended in 2016 and that was when another chapter in our lives effectively began,' she says.

Back home, her husband, Marcel, had already taken the first steps towards establishing a farm. In 2013, the family secured funding through a 40,000-euro project for young farmers, which enabled them to purchase a tractor and expand the area of land they cultivated. For Marcela, however, farming and milk processing were still unfamiliar territory.

In 2017, after taking a closer look at the farm's figures, she concluded that simply producing milk and cheese was not enough. If the family was to make a living from what it produced, it needed to make better use of its raw materials.

She acknowledges that it was necessity, rather than a longstanding passion for cheese-making, that brought her to this point. She began reading, searching for information and experimenting. Unable to find the specialist courses she was looking for in Romania, she turned to materials in Italian and even to an online forum where the technical processes involved in transforming milk were explained. Her first attempts involved yoghurt and kefir. Some were successful, while others ended up as animal feed. The most challenging product proved to be hard cheese.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
'In 2017, I took stock and told my husband that what we were producing was not enough and that we needed to do more with the milk we had. We started gradually, taking small steps, making a little yoghurt and a little kefir. I made mistakes too; not everything worked out from the beginning. The hardest thing was making cheese. It gave me the most trouble, but eventually I succeeded because I began to understand milk and what happens to it. I read extensively, looked for courses in Romania and, because I could not find what I needed, I started searching in Italian and studying the processes, cultures and every stage involved. At first, I experimented for our own consumption and, little by little, we arrived at the products we make today,' Marcela explains.

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A new project, submitted in 2019 and approved the following year, with a value of 117,000 euros, enabled the family to purchase equipment for the farm and milk processing. But this was not the final destination either. Marcela Pricop wanted to complete the circle: from the animal raised on the farm, through the raw material and processed product, to the plate served to the customer.

This is how the local gastronomic establishment took shape. Its operating principle is simple: the chain between producer and consumer should be as short as possible. Not only so that the money stays with the producer, but also so that the person sitting at the table knows who made the cheese, where the milk comes from, who raised the poultry and what kind of maize was ground to make the polenta.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
'I could not stop at farming and milk processing. My idea was to go from the farm directly to the finished product on the plate, shortening the chain as much as possible. I have never liked selling products I make myself through an intermediary. I believe that, if you want to grow, the person sitting in front of you needs to understand that you are the producer and that you know exactly what you are putting on their plate. Our dairy products contain milk, salt, cultures and natural rennet. I witnessed too much suffering during my years working in healthcare and, having chosen a different path, I thought I could at least try to offer food that is as simple and healthy as possible,' Marcela Pricop explains.

At the table, this philosophy is reflected in seemingly small details. The polenta is not made from maize flour bought off the shelf, but from maize taken to a mill and ground there. It takes longer to cook and requires more patience when stirring, but that is precisely the taste that, according to the host, city dwellers cannot easily recreate at home.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
'I also tell others who run local gastronomic establishments: 'Do not serve people the same polenta they can make themselves in their flat using shop-bought flour.' We use maize flour made from corn that is taken to a mill and ground there. It is true that it takes longer, has to cook for longer and needs to be stirred, but the taste is different. People who visit a local gastronomic establishment are looking precisely for that taste from the past and for something they do not eat at home every day. It is easy to win a customer once; it is much harder to make them come back. To achieve that, you have to be honest about what you put on their plate,' she says.

Most of the raw ingredients used come from the family's own farm. Milk and cheese, eggs and meat are produced there, with the exception of veal, which is purchased from a livestock farmer in the commune. When they run short of eggs, they also source them locally from other households. The family's wheat is taken to the mill and returned as flour, while some aromatic herbs are grown and dried on the farm. Fruit is turned into jams and syrups, including blackberry, blackcurrant and elderflower varieties.

The experience Marcela wants to create around the table is not limited to lunch. She has also organised traditional family events, with food prepared on the farm and homemade syrups served instead of commercially available drinks. Her plan is to develop the offer in precisely this direction: visitors should come not only to eat, but also to spend time on a farm and understand where their food comes from.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
'Almost all our raw ingredients - meat, eggs, milk and cheese - come from our own farm. The exception is veal, which I buy from a livestock farmer in the commune. If we run out of eggs, I look among the people living nearby and ask who has fresh eggs for sale. We grow our own wheat, take it to the mill and have it ground, we grow and dry our own herbs and we make jams and syrups from fruit. We have made blackberry, blackcurrant and elderflower syrups and try to use as much as possible of what we have here. I believe that is what a local gastronomic establishment should offer: not just a meal cooked in a country kitchen, but something that genuinely comes from the household you have visited,' Marcela says.

For her, this is also the difference between a gastronomic establishment that exists only on paper and one that can become a small tourist destination. The meal needs to be connected to the place, its products and, as far as possible, other experiences. Visitors are no longer simply looking for attractions to tick off a list, she believes, but for reasons to spend several hours somewhere, to see, taste and take part in activities.

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Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
Several local gastronomic establishments have been set up in Vrancea in recent years, including through projects funded by the European Union. In practice, however, those operating consistently and attracting visibility among tourists can be counted on the fingers of one hand. For such a place, opening the door is only the beginning: maintaining operations requires raw materials, daily work, promotion, staff and the ability to create an experience authentic enough to bring visitors back.

However, returning to Romania did not bring satisfaction alone. While the work on the farm never frightened her, bureaucracy sometimes made her question whether staying had been the right choice. The paperwork required for projects, payment instalments, documents requested by institutions and the difficulty of making further investments became a burden.

Another setback came in 2024, when she submitted a project to install photovoltaic panels, an important investment for a business in which milk-processing equipment generates monthly electricity bills running into thousands of lei. According to Marcela Pricop, the project was declared non-compliant because of a single document which she believes could have been requested later through a clarification procedure. The experience prompted her to reconsider other options for the future.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
'There are times when you wonder whether it would not be easier to leave again. The bureaucracy is far too cumbersome. If I showed you how many files I have for the six payment instalments of a single project, you would understand what I mean. In 2024, I also submitted a project for photovoltaic panels because electricity had become a major expense since we acquired the milk-processing equipment, but the project was declared non-compliant over a single document. These things wear you down and make you think about alternatives, especially when all you want is to keep investing. But I have come to understand something about myself: I am the kind of person you throw out through the door and who comes back through the window. I do not give up,' she says.

Even so, the plans continue. After tourists visiting the gastronomic establishment asked where they could charge their electric cars, Marcela began taking steps to install a charging station. It may seem like a detail far removed from the world of polenta cooked in a traditional cauldron and homemade cheese, but it says something about how she sees the future of the business: tradition should not be preserved in a photograph, but made accessible to people today.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
Marcela Pricop says that developing such a place cannot be separated from the development of tourism throughout the region. A local gastronomic establishment can provide lunch, but tourists also need attractions to visit and activities that will encourage them to stay. In her view, producers, local authorities and tourism promotion organisations should work together to link historical monuments, farms, local producers and rural experiences.

'I believe that when you run a local gastronomic establishment, you also need to think about other activities you can offer. People do not come to an area just to see a monument, eat and leave. They want an experience, something else to do, to see how things are produced and discover the place. But you cannot do all this on your own because it involves a great deal of logistics and you need people to help. I believe the authorities should also become more involved so that everything the area has to offer can be brought together into an experience for tourists,' Marcela Pricop says.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
This summer, the family also participated in an event organised in Sibiu, where producers, craftspeople and local gastronomic establishments came together in a space dedicated to traditions. For Marcela, seeing people remain at the tables even in the rain to taste the food prepared there was further confirmation that there is an appetite for authentic products when they are properly showcased.

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Perhaps this is the full circle of a story that began with a ticket to Italy. Marcela Pricop left because she could no longer see enough prospects at home and returned from a country where she had a secure job to learn an entirely new trade. She moved from intensive care to farming, from not knowing how to process milk to making the cheese that kept her experimenting for months, from the first investments to running a local gastronomic establishment where she tries to serve as much as possible of what her family produces.

Photo source: Marcela Pricop / Personal archive 
And although paperwork and obstacles have sometimes made her consider leaving again, for the time being her plans remain firmly rooted here: a charging station for tourists' electric cars, more activities on the farm, more products and an experience that will encourage people to return.

Because, two decades after first leaving Romania, the determination to carry on seems to have become part of the business itself: if you throw her out through the door, Marcela says, she comes back through the window. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Dana Lepadatu; EN - writing by: Adina Panaitescu)