Al Dente: Madness, Beauty and the Food of Rome - Couverture souple

Winner, David

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1847394426 ISBN 13 : 9781847394422

Editeur : Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

Al Dente This witty, fascinating and highly original interpretation of Rome's history, culture, art and religion takes the form of a book about food... Full description

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Imagine the River Tiber as an alimentary tract. Picture a hungry saint. Think of erotic Renaissance fruit paintings, transubstantiation and a tiramisu café where magic is surely on the menu... This highly original interpretation of Rome's history, culture, art and religion takes the form of a book about food that's not really about food at all.
In Al Dente Winner takes us on a stroll through the city as he muses on all things comestible and much else besides. We learn about Rome as metropolis and necropolis, about tasty vineyard snails and the food-and-sex scandal that sent Saint Jerome packing. The cinematic greats such as Argento, Fellini and Ferreri are discussed alongside historical political satire where grocery orgies were art and the penis was the subject of hagiographies. There are the bloodthirsty antics of an eighteenth-century executioner who worked for the pope, stories of immolation, architecture and artichokes, and a telephone interview with a nun who makes Eucharistic wafers.
Winner is a master of wit with a seemingly insatiable appetite for peculiar detail, and Al Dente provides an intriguing new portrait of a remarkable city - a veritable trifle of Roman bedrock and apogee, cosmos and counterculture to be devoured with gusto. Buon appetito...

Quatrième de couverture

'Both anecdotal and historical, passionate and detached…a sophisticated travel guide, and a quirky recipe book' Financial Times
'Lively and intruiging...peopled with eccentric film-makers, anorexic saints and wafer-making nuns. It is also in part…a ramble round the city, and Winner is an entertaining guide - zestful and thoughtful in equal measure. There are handy tips: where to get the most gorgeous view, the most addictive ice cream, the sexiest tiramisu, slotted in between an interesting discussion about the invention of pasta as a national dish at the time of Italy's unification, or a knowing riff on Fellini's explicit use of the term al dente'' Observer
'From communion wafers to ice cream and pasta, David Winner's flavourful book about the food of Rome travels far beyond recipes to offer an intellectual blow-out. Wittily blending art, history and religion with culinary lore, he shows how the Roman table has nourished the Eternal City's culture' Metro
'This eccentric salmagundi of a book is a delight, always entertaining and often revelatory. Winner convincingly demonstrates that the culture from which food emerges is far more interesting than dishes per se' Independent
'Quirky, funny and insightful' John Foot, TLS

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1847394426
• ISBN 13: 9781847394422
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 304