Taste: The No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller

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His humor is readily apparent, though he also has had his share of suffering. Ones life is never all peaches and cream and though his seems at time magical, the food he's eaten, the places he's been and the friends he has made, there is plenty of bad with the good. No, for some unknown reason, I feel more at home in the Italian Alps than I do in the brutal heat of Puglia. I like brisk autumns, snowy winters, rainy springs, and temperate summers. The change of seasons allows for a change in one’s wardrobe (I’m sartorially obsessed) and, most important, one’s diet. A boeuf carbonnade tastes a thousand times better in the last days of autumn than when it’s eighty degrees and the sun is shining. An Armagnac is the perfect complement to a snowy night by the fire but not to an August beach outing, just as a crisp Orvieto served with spaghetti con vongole is ideal “al fresco” on a sunny summer afternoon but not nearly as satisfying when eaten indoors on a cold winter’s night. One thing feeds the other. (Pun intended.) So a visit to Iceland to escape the gloom of what is known in London as “winter” was an exciting prospect. However, my greatest concern, as you can probably guess, if you’re still reading this, was the food.”

Filming in the UK, and later moving to (and currently living in) London, Tucci describes a some food in the UK as such: It’s obviously a sign of a good food book when all you do is salivate over various gustatory descriptions. Describing Stanley Tucci wife, Felicity Blunt, cooking roast potatoes and complete confusion when they watch her boiling, fluffing them up and covering in goose fat.This book is Stanley's life through food, from his childhood, as a young actor in NYC, through marriage and children, and even on movie sets. There are so many descriptions of various restaurants, catering, various places, and so many unimportant details, that it clogged the book entirely. You get to see Stanley Tucci as the charismatic actor you know from the screen in just a few passages. A delicious story of appetite, family and pasta. A serious amount of pasta. In this gloriously written memoir, the ever tasteful Stanley Tucci invites us to his table and feeds us all the good stuff." -Jay Rayner

There are recipes! Many recipes. For pasta of various types. For ragout. For meat. For fish. Two very different styles of roast potatoes. He talks about the history of the Martini (yes, it must have a capital M). There is a lot of talk about cheese. I looooove cheese. My stomach rumbled. Yet this kept falling flat for me. I was 🥱 and waiting for someone to save me from that person at a party.America held the promise of jobs, for both men and women, outside of the home, yet for many of them this did not mean that the agricultural and manual skills that were basically part of their DNA would no longer be used after they settled down in a new country. In fact, for a great many the mindset never changed. If you could grow it, raise it, hunt it, cultivate it, build it, or repair it yourself, why buy it or pay someone else to do it?” Absent that connective tissue, “Taste” at times seems less like a labor of love than an exercise in brand extension. Tucci has, in collaboration with family members, produced cookbooks. One of his early films, which he not only acted in but also helped to write and direct, was “Big Night,” about a quirky restaurant and a very important dinner. And he has a popular culinary travelogue show, “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,” on CNN. A memoir was missing. Now it’s not. He recounts the episode about two-thirds of the way through “Taste,” his food-focused memoir, and reveals that it wasn’t really a platter of penis before them but could so easily have passed for one that he blurted out as much, along with an expletive. Streep was unbowed. “She cut off a small piece,” he writes, then “chewed gingerly” before delivering her verdict.

Guess what, he waited six months! I know. I'm calling him out here only to prevent someone else from doing the same. A good reader friend pointed out that this was probably anxiety, and not just a guy avoiding the prognosis. He’s right of course, and I mistook it for machismo, which was totally incorrect. Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia; falling in love over dinner; and teaming up with his wife to create meals for a multitude of children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burned dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.

Stanley Tucci is an actor, writer, director, and producer. He has directed five films and appeared in over seventy films, countless television shows, and a dozen plays on and off Broadway. He has been nominated for an Academy Award, a Tony, and a spoken word Grammy; is a winner of two Golden Globes and five Emmys; and has received numerous other critical and professional awards and accolades.

Oh, the bit about machismo, in Stanley's last chapter he talks about his grueling bout with cancer. He had a cancerous tumor at the base of his tongue, in his throat, which started as a pain masquerading as a toothache. Or so he thought. He did go to the dentist, in the US and London. The London doctor said it might be cancer and gave him specific instructions on what to do next. I cannot begin to explain how much I loved this book but put it this way, Taste was my starter, Stanley Tucci interview on The Travel Diaries was my main and I’m currently enjoying the desert through the TV series, Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy. I can’t get enough. In Taste by Stanley Tucci, we get a nostalgic sample into Italian-American life. You feel like you’re at the Tucci family table through his admiration for his mother’s cooking, his father’s Friday night recipes and his stories of neighbours and friends praising the meals that they could never replicate. Reading this book will make you more attentive to the glorious -- or modest -- food on your table, and to the people with whom you are privileged to share it." --Jennifer Reese, The Washington Post

This superb book... Taste enriches the reader and establishes Tucci as one of the wisest and most generous personalities of our time." — Roger Lewis, Daily Mail Tomato Salad — SERVES 4 — 8 small ripe tomatoes (quartered or halved, depending upon their size) 1 garlic clove, halved A glug of EVOO A small handful of basil leaves, torn A splash of red wine vinegar (optional) Coarse salt Place the cut tomatoes in a bowl with the garlic, olive oil, basil, and vinegar, if using. Toss. Salt a few minutes before serving. (Adding it too soon will draw the water out of the tomatoes and dilute the dish.)” To me, eating well is not just about what tastes good but about the connections that are made through the food itself. I am hardly saying anything new by stating that our links to what we eat have practically disappeared beneath sheets of plastic wrap. 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. Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much a part of what solidifies a community.” Fortunately, things worked out in the end, but after two years of surgery, chemo, pain, and a long recovery. Our relationship with fire and food has shaped us as human beings, it connects us in a unique way, to ourselves, the people we love and this beautiful planet we live on. It is a wonderful story of and told by a wonderful man through his food memories. It is as infectious as it is delicious, as funny as it is insightful. The only reason to put this book down, is to go cook and eat from it.” – Heston Blumenthal