Having recently finished reading Taste by actor, director and fellow martini drinker Stanley Tucci, I am left with a profound sense of purpose. Not only to cook more and spend more time smelling tomatoes for ripeness in my local supermarket, but to encourage fellow food lovers to grab the first copy they see. Taste tells the story of Tucci’s life through comical and heart-warming anecdotes centred around food and drink.
As food is such a central component to our daily lives, the harmony of this work as part cookbook and part autobiography made me wonder why more biographies aren’t written in this format. Through Tucci’s witty and matter of fact style of writing this book manages to elicit great feeling (mostly the feeling of hunger, I do not recommend reading this on an empty stomach). There is a real sense of joy in Taste that comes not only from Tucci’s dry humour but also from the wonderful message of finding happiness in simplicity and enjoying the little things.
Forget about the Michelin stars. Is there anything better than simple well-cooked food made with love?
However, from Tucci’s time as a struggling actor to his own battle with cancer, there is pain and adversity in these pages too. It is this contrast in tones that shapes Tucci’s writing. More than anything else though, Tucci manages to beautifully capture something intangible, the idea that ‘eating well is not just about what tastes good but about the connections that are made through the food itself.’ The magic and power that eating, cooking, drinking, and truly anything that happens around a dinner table has in bringing and binding people together is something special that is appreciated by only a select few and overlooked by most.
The only difficulty with Taste is deciding where the book belongs: on a shelf squeezed between memoirs and items of non-fiction or joining the culinary ranks of cookbooks? My copy has found its permanent home in the kitchen, the recipes marked, the pages already a little dog eared and splattered with passata.
Somehow I don’t think the author would disapprove.
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