Taste by Stanley Tucci

 

From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen.

Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the 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 recipes and into the stories behind them.

Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about growing up in Westchester, New York, preparing for and filming the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia, falling in love over dinner, and teaming up with his wife to create conversation-starting meals for their children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burnt dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.

Written with Stanley's signature wry humor and nostalgia, Taste is a heartwarming read that will be irresistible for anyone who knows the power of a home-cooked meal.

First off, a warning… don’t listen to this, or read it, if you aren’t prepared to be ravenous throughout! I listened to it on audiobook and wow, it made me so hungry.

So I love Stanley Tucci, always have, which made me quite interested in his memoir about his life through food. What a good read it is.

Stanley starts off with his childhood, his mother making huge and hearty meals every day, feeding friends of Stanley’s, and giving him the leftovers for his school packed lunch the next day. Extremely jealous, we got sandwiches, he gets full on pasta dishes, and meatloaf. He talks about his first marriage, the death of his lovely wife, and moving on after and meeting his second wife. The love he has for his family, his children, his parents, is so obvious, the way he talks about them makes you know he would do anything for them. He loves to feed them, he loves to make them happy.

I loved the way he talks about food, so passionate, you can tell he loves it. I felt really bad for him when he talked about his cancer, and the fact he couldn’t eat for so long. I was so happy when he could start to make his own stuff to go through his feeding tube. But I thought it was just beautiful that he said even though he couldn’t taste it (therefore could put anything in really),, he wanted to make sure it would taste good to someone who could taste, if they tried it. He cares about it alot.

One of the most fabulous things in this book is the recipes. I may have to purchase a physical copy just so I have the recipes, there were so many i wanted to try. I got so hungry listening to this, I’ve had pasta twice in the days since finishing it!

If you like food, it’s a must read. But also, just to listen to Mr Tucci talk for 7 hours is bliss.