I haven’t read any other books (cookbooks?) by this author, but I certainly enjoy his acting and I love Italian food, so I was eager to read through this book, his memoirs over the course of his life through the lens of food.
This book shows a lot of reverence for the acts of cooking, eating, and discussing good food. Using a self-deprecating and clever style of humor, the author describes his experiences growing up, and gives details of his memorable eating and cooking experiences over the years. One theme that he mentions that I appreciated was the role of small businesses in providing good food and ingredients, rather than the big strip mall supermarket chains that apparently dominate the USA these days. He writes:
“But what are also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it, who bought it from someone who loves to grow, catch, or raise it.”
I thought this point struck a chord with me, and I am happy that now I live in a place where the small businesses are still around (although even here in Japan some big supermarkets are starting to dominate).
Although the author stresses the keeping of family food traditions and recipes, there are sometimes long descriptions of what we should absolutely not do, and when making this dish we should never do that, and that kind of thing turns me off. Sure, your family follows this tradition, but those rules are for you – not necessarily everyone.
There is quite a bit of name-dropping in these chapters, and although he makes a cute joke about him dropping names, I thought it didn’t really add much for me. I’d rather hear more about the experience of the foods that he cooked and ate, or the culture behind it. He introduced the disappearing culture of the Chinese Cuban community in New York – more of this, please!
So this was a nice read, although nothing here that changed my thinking on food or that had me rolling out pasta for next weekend.
Next I’m reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
