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Mary Ann Esposito

Mary Ann Esposito
Born (1942-08-03) August 3, 1942 (age 74)
Buffalo, New York, United States
Alma mater University of New Hampshire
Occupation Chef, television personality and writer
Known for Host of Ciao Italia with Mary Ann Esposito television series

Mary Ann Esposito (born August 3, 1942, in Buffalo, New York) is an American chef, cookbook writer, and the television host of Ciao Italia with Mary Ann Esposito, which started in 1989 and is the longest-running television cooking program in America. Esposito has published over a dozen cookbooks.

She was raised in Buffalo, New York. Her mother was a dietician.

Her grandmothers, both professional chefs, moved to the United States from Italy in the 1890s. Her paternal grandmother, from Sicily, owned a butcher shop in Fairport, New York, and her maternal grandmother lived in Buffalo, where she owned a boarding house. The latter grandmother was from Naples, and continued the traditions of her Italian household within the boarding house. The boarding house was the only house in the neighborhood that had a bathtub, and on Friday nights she would offer neighbors a bath and dinner for a quarter. While her grandmothers provided traditional Italian food, Esposito desired to eat standard foods like other children: Wonder Bread and iceberg lettuce.

Esposito, who never intended to pursue a career in cooking, learned to cook from her family. Her grandmothers made bread every day, with Esposito helping to make upwards of twenty loaves of bread a day, canning vegetables and fruits, and helping to prepare ingredients for meals. Eventually, Esposito attended college, where she would graduate with a teaching degree and become an elementary school teacher.

In 1979, her mother sent her a pasta maker, and despite a lack of interest in cooking as an adult, Esposito taught herself how to make pasta dough. The following year, she and her husband Guy visited Italy for the first time, visiting his cousins. While in Italy, Esposito started attending a cooking class.


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