Risotto with Nettles: A Memoir with Food
Anna Del Conte
A wonderful, evocative memoir by the woman who first brought Italian cooking to Britain and fuelled a culinary revolution.
'Anyone who cooks should have Anna's books, it is the simple truth' Nigella Lawson
Born in Milan, Anna del Conte grew up in Italy in a gentler time. When war came to Italy everything changed: her family had to abandon their apartment and the city for the countryside, where the peasants still ate well, but life was dangerous... As a teenager, Anna became used to throwing herself into a ditch as the strafing planes flew over, and was imprisoned, twice. Her story is informed and enlivened by the food and memories of her native land - from lemon granita to wartime risotto with nettles, from vitello tonnato to horsemeat roll, from pastas to porcini.
Anna arrived in England in 1949 to a culinary wasteland. She married an Englishman and stayed on, and while bringing up her children, she wrote books which inspired a new generation of cooks. This is a memoir of a life seen through food - each chapter rounded off with mouthwatering recipes.
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About Anna Del Conte
Reviews for Risotto with Nettles: A Memoir with Food
Nigella
Observer Food Monthly
A well-mannered memoir of an engaging life, laced with recipes
Mail on Sunday
You magazine
Recipe-stuffed... Rich in mouth-watering prose, this is proof indeed that food doesn't just nourish your body but also your soul
Metro
A rollercoaster read... frank and thought-provoking. Del Conte has lived life to the full, through good times and bad, and there's plenty here to keep you turning the pages
Irish Times
Del Conte may have adopted English self-effacement with the energy of the converted but she knows how to tell a story
Nina Caplan
Time Out London
Best of the books' (food): 'there is something very special about this book...observant, evocative, full of tastes and talk of food, hers is a delicious, poignant memoir of an unusual life and the food she loves to cook, which launched a culinary revolution
David Herbert
Easy Living
Double the pleasure with the great Anna del Conte's lovely memoir with food
Elisabeth Luard
The Scotsman
The autobiography or travelogue studded with recipes and oozing descriptions of whiffy hand-made cheeses has become a publishing cliché. Here though is one that really earns its place on the shelf. Anna del Conte is one of our most important cookery writers...Del Conte's recollections are crisply unsentimental
Victoria Moore
Daily Mail
The best writer on Italian food there is"...Del Conte is a great stylist...Inevitably, food plays a big part in the book and is described with tempting intensity
The Independent, Nigella Lawson
In this delightful memoir she intersperses the story of her life with a selection of some of the mouth-watering recipes that have helped establish her as a peerless expert on Italian cooking
Simon Shaw
Guardian