Book Review of Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci’s new memoir, Taste, is a look back at how food was the foundation, the comfort and inspiration for his life. From the wholesome and warm stories of Tucci’s childhood to the years with his children, wives, career and travel.

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Contents

Places We Travel in Taste: My Life Through Food

• USA: New York, Maine, LA
• Italy: Naples, Rome, Florence, Cittanova, Calabria, Lake Como, Amalfi Coast, Sardinia
• UK: London, Lake District
• France
• Iceland
• Canada

Get a copy of Taste here!

Who is Stanley Tucci?

An actor born in New York, some of Stanley Tucci movies include Big Night, The Devil Wears Prada and The Terminal. During Lockdown, he went viral with his cocktail recipes and is now on TV shows about travel and food and Taste is his first memoir.

Summary of Stanley Tucci Book

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.

We travel to Italy when the Lira was still used and his family lived there for a short time before returning to the USA for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In adult years, we travel with Tucci in his career and learn about the on-set food and hear wonderful tales of Italian food and history.

Through the wit and authenticity of Tucci’s writing, you know for sure that the book is a genuine memoir and you devour the words almost as fast as you rush to make Stanley Tucci recipes for yourself!

Stanley Tucci Taste My Life Through Food – Travel Perspective

My favourite travel aspect of Stanley Tucci My Life Through Food is the story of Italy’s people, history and food including saliva-inducing recipes and Italian cooking rules such as:

• He lists wonderful pairings of pasta and sauce because “not all wheat flour pasta works with all sauces”.
• “Incredibly vague name of red sauce or even, Gravy”. Do not call sauce, gravy. Gravy is completely different and what Brits use over our Sunday roast Dinners.
• At Christmas, they enjoy Naples street food like pitti fritti using leftover pizza dough.
• The Tucci Family Ragu recipe (chapter 4).
• Stanley Tucci’s father’s Friday night recipes (chapter 1).
• Claudia’s Zuccini Pasta / Stanley Tucci Courgette Pasta (chapter 9).

Travelling to Maine in New England, USA for a taste of the states, we learn about the Maine landscape, accent, humour and rules of being ‘from Maine’. And most importantly, that this is where you can get the best, fresh lobster.

We hear about the New York of old and places that are no longer there like “independantly-owned cinemas” but makes you want to visit New York and experience the current places.

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Rome is another destination and Tucci explains what a true Carbonara is, its history and where to find “the best carbonara in a city of Carbonaras.” (chapter 8). We must eat pasta recipes that are approved by Italians!

Filming in the UK, and later moving to (and currently living in) London, Tucci describes a some food in the UK as such:

• “Fried eggs [..], sausages, bacon, [..] tomatoes, baked beans and porridge”.
• “Sausage baps [..], heart-stopping breakfast”.
• “A tea table [..] with an urn of hot water, a box or two of teabags, milk, sugar, some paper cups and a few packages of digestive biscuits”.
• 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.

He’s completely correct about all of the above.

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Stanley Tucci Memoir Length

I listened to Taste on Audible which takes 6 hours and 49 minutes to listen to.

I speed my audiobooks up so it only took me about 4 hours of listening and I couldn’t listen fast enough and had it on at every opportunity (walking, cooking, shower, dishes, washing).

The physical book is just 320 pages so isn’t a huge book to get through and honestly, the writing and story is so good that you’ll wish it was longer.

I listen to 4-5 audiobooks a month on Audible. If you sign up here, you can get 30 days free trial on Audible which gives you 1 credit to get any Audiobook you want and access to hundreds of free material including audiobooks and podcasts.
Get your free trial here!

My Rating of Taste by Stanley Tucci Book

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.

Not only is this an autobiography but it’s a dip into history, cuisine of Italian-Americans and Italy, Stanley Tucci cooking, Stanley Tucci family and a glimpse into Stanley Tucci cookbook recipes. LOVED THIS!

I hope we haven’t seen the end of him and would like to see a Stanley Tucci cocktail book or new recipe book to come out soon.

Stars = 5/5

Stanley Tucci Cook Books:

Stanley Tucci New Book Quotes

• “[My mother] has never cooked a bad meal. Not once”. Same.
• “My God, what does the rest of the world eat”.
• “A good restaurant with consistently well-cooked classic fair is as close to home as one can get”.
• “Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal [..] I know I’ll be in cities that are home to a plethora of great restaurants”.
• “This recipe, like so many Italian peasant dishes, is considered a luxury”.
• “Love can, and does, enter through the mouth”.

Buy Taste:
| Waterstones | The Book Depository | bookshop.org

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