Summary

Sharply observant, evocative, and full of tastes and talk of food, one of the greatest living experts on Italian food offers a delicious, poignant memoir of an unusual life   Anna Del Conte's life story is informed and enlivened by the food and memories of her native Italy--from lemon granita in childhood winters to wartime risotto with nettles, from vitello tonnato to horsemeat roll, from pastas to porcini--each chapter rounded off with mouthwatering recipes. Born in Milan, she grew up in pre-war Italy in a privileged gentler time. When war came to Italy her family had to abandon their apartment and the city for the countryside, where in war-torn Italy the peasants still ate well, but life was dangerous. As a teenager, Anna became used to throwing herself into a ditch as attack planes flew over, and was imprisoned, twice. She arrived in England in 1949 when much of Britain was a culinary wasteland, married an Englishman, and stayed on to eventually launch a culinary revolution. Her memories of a life seen through food are vividly, hilarious preserved--from the joys of unrationed horse meat to bringing up her children while writing the cookbooks that would inspire a new generation of cooks.