Taste: The No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller

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A delicious story of appetite, family and pasta. A serious amount of pasta. In this gloriously written memoir, the ever tasteful Stanley Tucci invites us to his table and feeds us all the good stuff." –Jay Rayner One by one, fill the bottles (with a ladle, via funnel) with the tomato juice and add a pinch of salt and a basil leaf to each. It was part of my grandfather, whom we adored, and that made it the sweetest liquid ever to pass our lips. I’d like him even more if he’d help me get ready for the Met Ball and give me that tough lovin’ I need to survive my mean boss at Runway magazine, so I can ultimately become a journalist at the New York… I was sorry to learn that he had oral cancer — suffered, lost his taste for awhile-but was equally happy to learn he is now cancer-free….

In adult years, we travel with Tucci in his career and learn about the on-set food and hear wonderful tales of Italian food and history. It was hard for me. I’m not used to being myself; I find it uncomfortable. I didn’t want the show to be presentational, or performative, if that’s even a word. I wanted it to be casual, in a way, but specific. I wanted it to be entertaining, but also I wanted to dig a little bit deeper than one might normally. And I didn’t want to always show the good side of Italy, a country I love, because no country is perfect. Italy isn’t always sunny, and the people aren’t always happy. There’s a lot of poverty, there’s a lot of strife, there’s a huge political rift between the right and the left, not unlike America. There are those who believe that the north should be separated from the south. That’s been going on for many, many years, ever since Italy was united, in 1861. We wanted to touch on all of that, but always through the prism of food.Over the years, I’ve enjoyed watching Stanley Tucci act in movies and in television programs, so I was happy when he published his memoir! Since a very young age as a boy growing up in a large and extended Italian family in upstate New York, Stanley was interested in food and its preparation. My favourite travel aspect of Stanley Tucci My Life Through Food is the story of Italy’s people, history and food including saliva-inducing recipes and Italian cooking rules such as: The book started off well enough with memories of his mother in particular who cooked up a storm and growing up in an Italian American family. Many memories made me laugh because I also grew up in an Italian American family. In my family, however, my father worked two jobs to make ends meet and when things got tough, monetarily, my mom went out to work at a bank and rose in ranks as the head teller. Those were difficult times as we hardly saw our parents but my mother always, always “cooked up a storm” for her family.

When I was a boy, Fourth of July celebrations were very important in our family. At this time all or most of my family members who had been part of the great wave of Italian immigrants were still alive. Compared to the abject poverty of the Italian south, America held for them everything Italy could not offer or would not allow. It was in America that their dreams of a new and successful life came true. They created Italian enclaves all over the country by sending for family and friends once work had been secured. America gave them the best of both worlds: a country where prospects were many, and the opportunity to surround themselves with extended family. In this new world, they would birth new generations who had options available to them never thought possible in the poor and corrupt towns of Southern Italy. In America they worked together, grew together, and sometimes grew apart together. Taste was a delightful memoir by Stanley Tucci of his life through food beginning with growing up in an Italian family in upstate New York with many traditions surounding food. He lovingly describes how when he was growing up, his mother spent most of her waking time in the kitchen, which she does to this day. In Tucci's words, cooking for her is at once a creative outlet and a way of feeding her family well: Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the savory recipes and into the compelling stories behind them.​ I listen to 4-5 audiobooks a month on Audible. If you sign up here, you can get 30 days free trial on Audible which gives you 1 credit to get any Audiobook you want and access to hundreds of free material including audiobooks and podcasts.The fruit and the dessert were standard fare, but it was the sandwiches that were the marvel, and oftentimes made me the envy of my friends. I had obviously seen this book around…..so when the library had it available, I thought I would chime in. Stanley loves good food, particularly Italian food, since his grandparents on both sides hail from the Calabria region of Italy. (watch his show, a tour through Italy, currently on HBO Max.)

Now that I spend most of my time in London, I must admit celebrating American Independence Day is a tad uncomfortable for one fairly obvious reason: the colonists won and the British lost. (I know the war was a long time ago, but I never quite know how to celebrate that victorious day here without feeling like I’m rubbing it in some Brit’s face—like my in-laws.) However, during the Obama administration, my family and I were fortunate enough to be invited to two July Fourth fêtes at Winfield House in Regent’s Park, the home of the American ambassador. These were lovely, casually posh daytime affairs for expats (a nice word for immigrants) and their families, complete with American military bands, jazz singers, and all the traditional American foods one could eat. How ironic that in England, of all places, on these two occasions I would be reminded of all the positive aspects of this important American day. Taking part in joyous celebrations of American democracy on foreign soil made me long for a time in my youth when the sausage and peppers of Italian immigrants sat peacefully on the grill alongside their American cousins, the hot dog and the hamburger. I’m not sure what to say about this book. It’s definitely not what I was expecting because I was expecting so much more. Not only is this an autobiography but it’s a dip into history, cuisine of Italian-Americans and Italy, Stanley Tucci cooking, Stanley Tucci family and a glimpse into Stanley Tucci cookbook recipes. LOVED THIS!Guess what, he waited six months! I know. I'm calling him out here only to prevent someone else from doing the same. A good reader friend pointed out that this was probably anxiety, and not just a guy avoiding the prognosis. He’s right of course, and I mistook it for machismo, which was totally incorrect. Favorite chapters were when he talked about his shoots on films in different countries. The food that was provided. I think Iceland, surprisingly to him and me, was Iceland. The chapter when he talks about his family having to be isolated together due to Covid. Two young children, four over 18, himself and his wife. I was exhausted just reading about it. My bad I guess because I was hoping for more funny similarities about Italian Americans growing up! Boil them for a while. (I can’t remember what the health ruling is on this so/and/but I take no responsibility for any foodborne illnesses). There are lots of gaps. We get the childhood in Katonah, New York (the son of a high-school art teacher, his grandparents emigrated to the US from Calabria), but little about his efforts to win an Equity card (maybe he was too poor to eat then). His two marriages are touched on only lightly (his first wife, Kathryn, died of cancer in 2009; his second – whom he met at her sister’s wedding, at George Clooney’s “gorgeous” house in Lake Como – is the literary agent, Felicity Blunt). There isn’t much… gossip, unless you count the (non) revelation that Marcello Mastroianni, with whom Tucci once had dinner, favoured a digestivo comprising half a shot of amaro and half a shot of Fernet-Branca.