Taste: My Life Through Food

“The sun is now in your stomach.”

This is how Tucci concludes the instructions for his Negroni recipe in the book's introductory section. Using the sun itself as a metaphor for the Negroni cocktail, this comparison conveys warmth, nourishment—even enlightenment. Tucci sets the tone of the book with this one simple sentence.

“I must confess that sometimes I think the best bread in Italy is in France.”

This quote is found in the footnotes. Characteristic of his good humor, Tucci also makes personal and cultural pronouncements. The title of the book—Taste—is not only a reference to the experience of savoring food but also an allusion to personal discernment. Tucci prides himself on his excellent taste, and he subtly teases the Italy that he clearly adores with this wry statement.

“During summer vacations we followed the same routine like crazed ants at an endless picnic.”

Tucci also employs similes throughout the book. Here, he compares himself and his childhood friends to ants driven mad by the endless opportunities for food. The kids move from house to house, munching on whatever offerings have been provided for this “endless picnic,” perhaps unwittingly, by the adults who are away at work during the day. 

“The Calabrese are known in Italy as ‘teste dure.’ Translated literally, it means ‘hardheads’ and points to an innate stubbornness. However, given the longevity of my family members, it seems that their bodies may be even more stubborn than their minds.”

Tucci is talking about the disturbing fact that his family ate crabs and other food from the notoriously polluted Hudson River. This nickname for the Calabrese folk signifies his grandparents’ stubborn refusal to heed warnings about eating from the polluted waters and the hearty constitutions of said peoples—the family, according to Tucci, never became sick from that potentially contaminated food.

“When the strikes first began, my mother of course questioned my unexpected return [from school], and I would cheerily explain that there was a strike. At first she and my father were shocked. They both worked in an American high school, where nothing like this would ever happen.”

This indicates the cultural dislocation that the Tucci family felt at times during their year abroad in Florence when young Stanley was 12 and 13. It juxtaposes the American experience of school—regimented, inevitable—with the Italian attitude toward education. Tucci renders the latter as lackadaisical, the teachers less interested in instruction than in endless agitation. The reason for the strikes is never completely clear.

“They [Swanson TV dinner, Velveeta, etc.] were what our friends ate, and so we coveted them. In hindsight this is obviously the reason my mother bought all of these things for us even though they were anathema to her. Yes, they were quick and easy snack foods with which to placate us, but I’d like to think that she bought them so we might feel like we ‘belonged.’”

Food is not only a marker of cultural identity, but it is also a marker of cultural difference. Tucci’s largely Italian diet—his mother sends him to school with leftover meatballs or veal cutlet sandwiches—varies from his peers. To connect with the more typical families in his community, Tucci craves the mass-produced foods of the American grocery store chains. Even without the imprint of authenticity, these foods still serve a purpose beyond mere sustenance.

“I have pots and pans that were my mother’s that I will never part with, not only because ‘nobody makes them like that anymore’ but also because they remind me of her and the extraordinary meals she made for our family. Losing a beloved family heirloom is a very real personal loss; they’re things that cannot ever be replaced or re-created.”

Tucci also connects to his family through cooking and food, in general. Those pots and pans are the material representations of family dinners—and, of course, the love that was poured into the making of them. He goes on to suggest that recipes, unlike “a lost physical heirloom,” are a part of the historical record that cannot be lost and “that can be re-created over and over again” (85). The physical paraphernalia of cooking is only one small part of a continuing story.

“My mother continued to chew silently with her eyes still focused on her plate. After a slight, and not un-tense, pause, she looked at Kate and said, ‘I have nothing left to teach you.’ And then she started to cry.”

Representative of his mother’s culinary genius, the family recipe for lasagna with besciamella sauce is a difficult dish to reproduce. Tucci’s mother is touched by Kate’s (Tucci’s first wife) dedication to getting one of her recipes exactly right. It is both an admission of defeat—the student has now become the master—and an expression of joy.

“At one time cod was so plentiful, it was said that off the coast of Nova Scotia, people could walk across the water on the backs of this coveted fish. Unfortunately, due to overfishing, its numbers have dwindled, to say the least, hence the rather high price it commands at fishmongers’ the world over.”

Tucci’s use of hyperbole—a literal highway of fish—brings awareness to the vexing issues of sustainability that lurk beneath all contemporary discussions of food. Overfishing, combined with climate change and other environmental degradations, continue to wreak havoc on different sectors of the food industry. A delicate negotiation between one’s gustatory pleasures and one’s environmental obligations is required to achieve an ethical balance.

“What Keith Floyd did by taking the cooking show out of the studio into the streets, onto the seas, and up to the mountaintops changed the face of food television for better and forever.”

Tucci references the British television personality to illustrate what he values in cooking shows and food-centered entertainment: again, it is a gesture toward authenticity. Rather than reveling in the artificiality of a studio cooking show—with its faux expressions of perfection and delight—Tucci prefers the reality of the cultural interactions. This description could just as easily apply to his own television program, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, which is at once a cooking show, a travel program, and a cultural odyssey.

“My fingers can’t find the words to describe it.”

Tucci employs the figure of speech known as a synecdoche, wherein the fingers (the part) stand in for Tucci himself (the whole). In trying to type up (or write) a description of a superlative meal he had in Sicily, Tucci finds himself unable to intellectualize an experience that is inherently a sensual one. 

“The change of seasons allows for a change in one’s wardrobe (I’m sartorially obsessed) and, most important, one’s diet.”

While couched as a mild, self-deprecating joke, Tucci references the importance of seasonality to the concept of authenticity in certain food-obsessed circles. Eating seasonally respects the quality of ingredients, grown and harvested at certain times of the year and honors the cultural traditions that have developed as a result—not to mention to lower one’s carbon footprint. That is, before the days of mass transportation and refrigeration, seasonal delights such as asparagus could only be enjoyed during springtime; now, it can be had—at a price, both financial and environmental—year-round. This devalues the product itself, which is never as tasty when transported thousands of miles, and the time-honored recipes and cultural traditions that celebrate it.

“Marcello orders a scotch on the rooks, ‘to open up the stomach,’ he explains in his broken English. This is a very Italian tradition and belief and where the term aperitivo comes from: ‘aprire,’ ‘to open,’ ‘tivo,’ a colloquial shortening of ‘appetito’; hence, ‘to open the appetite.’”

An example of the importance of alcoholic beverages to food traditions and the history of the table, this explication of aperitivo refers to the age-old tradition of enjoying a drink before dinner. This varies among cultures—in much of Asia, for example, it is considered impolite to drink before dining—and, in America, it has enjoyed success to a fluctuating degree. Traditions surrounding alcohol in America have always been somewhat moderated by the streak of temperance that goes back all the way to its Puritan beginnings.

“In this case, I read as much as possible about Julia and Paul, spent time with Paul’s great-nephew the wonderful writer Alex Prud’homme, and, to get a real taste of his life (pun intended and achieved), cooked a number of recipes from my copy of Julia’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking that my mother had given me years ago.”

Tucci writes about his experience playing Paul Child, Julia Child’s husband, in the movie Julie & Julia. It gives the reader insight into Tucci’s methods as an actor; he favors research, and in this case, his research gives him much food for thought (quite literally). He also reveals that he learned to make a traditional omelet in preparation for his role in Big Night.

“I have acquired more air miles than I would like to remember flying between locations and home so as not to be away from my family for long stretches of time. For this reason obviously the farther away the location, the more I grapple with the choice [of taking the job]. The other reason is the food.”

Tucci is clearly dedicated to his family, not only to his parents (and the memory of his grandparents) but also to his wife and children. Close upon their heels in order of significance, however, is food. The decision to take a role based on where the movie or show is to be filmed reveals his foodie tendencies. It also implicitly gestures to the notion of authenticity, that food from the source is better than imitations far from its cultural roots.

“As usual I watched the bartender like a hawk while he concocted my crepuscular tipple, making sure he had even a vague idea of how to work both shaker and strainer simultaneously.”

Tucci again employs a simile, albeit a rather cliched one, to indicate his devotion to the authentic expression of his favorite nighttime cocktail, the Martini. He admits that he has been known to intercede if the bartender is unsure or unschooled in how to make the drink properly.

“When she wants something, she has the gift of charmingly commanding attention in the way only the British do. Is it the accent? She is not posh, but when she speaks, her education is immediately evident, as are her innate intelligence and warmth. I guess the combination of all these attributes is the reason she is so successful, she has so many lovely friends, and I never win an argument.”

Here, Tucci is talking about his wife, Felicity, who effortlessly commands the waiter at a restaurant to provide the couple with whatever they demand. It conveys his obvious affection and respect for his wife and his self-deprecating humor. How Tucci speaks of Felicity makes one suspect that arguments between the two are rare.

“Instantly, like dueling Judas Iscariots, the two people who brought me into this world sided with my lover and turned on me, saying things like, ‘She knows what she’s doing! It’s fine! It’s just a little smoke! Leave her alone...,’ etc.”

Tucci’s parents immediately side with Felicity as she makes her British-inflected roasted potatoes, filling the kitchen with billowing smoke. The simile here humorously invokes Tucci’s feelings of betrayal, exaggerating their defense of Felicity’s method into a treachery of biblical proportions. 

“I visit them [butcher shops and fishmongers] in the same way I visit an art gallery. I’m not necessarily there to buy; I just want to see the exhibit.”

Butcher shops and fishmonger stalls are compared to art galleries: for Tucci, food is art, a means of creative expression and edible invention all at once. Food is meant to invoke both sensual pleasures—as much to the eye as to the tongue or the nose—and intellectual curiosity, just as musing on painting or sculpture does.

“As I said earlier, paella cooked outdoors draws people into its orbit like crows or monkeys drawn to shiny objects. They linger around the pan as it burbles away, slowly chatting about this and that but all the while taking in the slow transformation that happens as the rice expands and grows deeper in color as the sofrito works its way into each grain, the mollusks open slowly, and the shrimp change from an opaque blue-white to reddish pink.”

Here, food is discourse: as the onlookers gather around the paella pan, they are engaged in conversation, idle chatter, and serious discussion alike. Thus, the transformation of the paella echoes the experience of community: all of the ingredients (or people) coalesce to form something new, something greater than the sum of its parts.

“Basically most fish stew recipes are quite similar. However, there are some ingredients that in most places would be acceptable but in certain regions of Italy are blasphemous to use.”

Throughout the book, Tucci uses religious language to illustrate the unparalleled commitment to food. This devotional relationship is akin to spiritual enlightenment; hence, heresy is always lurking in the background, too. Pairing sauces with the wrong pasta shape, cutting spaghetti at the table, or introducing certain ingredients into traditional recipes are acts of irreligious disrespect.

“Today this recipe, like so many Italian peasant dishes, is considered a luxury for which anyone will happily pay a pretty penny in restaurants all over the world. (Cacio e pepe is another prime example.)”

Referring to spaghetti con zucchine alla Nerano, Tucci notes the contemporary tendency to elevate simple peasant food to luxury status symbol. On the one hand, this is a flattering acknowledgment of the pleasures to be found in authenticity and tradition and a form of respect paid to the impoverishment that necessitates such cucina povera. On the other hand, it appropriates the cuisine of the poor and, ironically, puts such dishes out of the reach of those who are its true inheritors.

“Watching my guests enjoy the meal I’d made filled me with great familial pride. In those moments it was clear to me that someday, when my parents are no longer alive, I will always be able to put their teachings and all the love they gave me into a bowl and present it to someone who sadly will never have had the good fortune to know them. But by eating that food, they will come to know them, if even just a little.”

Tucci emphasizes the vital connection that food and recipes bring to the table, pun intended. These traditions are as much a legacy of Tucci’s parents as are their children themselves; to eat their food is to know their essence. Their food is Tucci’s inheritance. Food transcends even death to pass on the family legacy and personal connection.