Taste: The No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller

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There are lots of gaps. We get the childhood in Katonah, New York (the son of a high-school art teacher, his grandparents emigrated to the US from Calabria), but little about his efforts to win an Equity card (maybe he was too poor to eat then). His two marriages are touched on only lightly (his first wife, Kathryn, died of cancer in 2009; his second – whom he met at her sister’s wedding, at George Clooney’s “gorgeous” house in Lake Como – is the literary agent, Felicity Blunt). There isn’t much… gossip, unless you count the (non) revelation that Marcello Mastroianni, with whom Tucci once had dinner, favoured a digestivo comprising half a shot of amaro and half a shot of Fernet-Branca. He talks about all of it and includes recipes, good ones. My galley didn't include photos, but I would bet the published version will, and I can't wait. 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.

We are glad you made it Stanley, and we love you. Your book is wonderful, and I highly recommend it.

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He's sexy, sensitive, and he can cook, well! He has a tiny bit of machismo, I'll explain later, but it doesn't really surface often. Most remember him from, 'The Devil wears Prada,' and 'Julie and Julia' both with Meryl Streep. My favorite is, 'Big Night' which is a great segue to Taste. But after a while, it ceases to matter that he’s no Robert Evans, nor even a David Niven. The mind clings, like a good sauce, to other things. The fact that Tucci finds his wife’s greediness sexy and endearing – and that she, in turn, felt no need to hide this part of herself on their early dates, chasing after a restaurant cheese trolley with her eyes as if it were the last train home and she was about to miss it – makes me very happy. I’m not even being facetious when I say that, if we’re serious about ending cultural sexism, a good place to start might be right here. The world needs more men like this: the kind of bloke – and a Hollywood star, to boot – who could not be more delighted when a woman asks for seconds; who cooks for a girl like he really means it.

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. We’re always taking in information in different ways—visually, orally, kinesthetically, and so on—but I realized that so much of the way I took in everything I experienced was through my mouth. So it made sense that the memoir would take that shape. I think maybe people expected it to be more about movies, or more about celebrities or gossip, and I’m afraid I’m not really interested in that. What’s interesting to me is the relationship between what you do in your job and then what you do outside of your job, whether it’s taking care of your kids or cooking or playing sport or music. And then how do those two things, or however many things, go together? Those are all the things that make up you.

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When I was a boy, Fourth of July celebrations were very important in our family. At this time all or most of my family members who had been part of the great wave of Italian immigrants were still alive. Compared to the abject poverty of the Italian south, America held for them everything Italy could not offer or would not allow. It was in America that their dreams of a new and successful life came true. They created Italian enclaves all over the country by sending for family and friends once work had been secured. America gave them the best of both worlds: a country where prospects were many, and the opportunity to surround themselves with extended family. In this new world, they would birth new generations who had options available to them never thought possible in the poor and corrupt towns of Southern Italy. In America they worked together, grew together, and sometimes grew apart together. 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. 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.

In this book, Tucci shared memories of growing up in an Italian family that shared an immense love of food, and how his preferences were much more expansive than those of his peers, yet he still craved the junk foods of his youth. As charming and warm as the man himself. A wonderful mix of family anecdotes, the importance of food, the love of food and how we tie food memories to events, people and places.

He describes himself as a “food nerd”, and his memoir literally portrays his “life through food”. In the book, Mr. Tucci shares his considerable knowledge of food, cooking, and also of drinks by including many of his favorite recipes. I’ve copied several of them, and am planning to try making them! 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. My bad I guess because I was hoping for more funny similarities about Italian Americans growing up!

I’m not sure what to say about this book. It’s definitely not what I was expecting because I was expecting so much more. The series follows, in some ways, a very traditional food-travel-show format. Each episode has you in a different city or region, blending together the culinary and the cultural. How was it approaching the shoot as a host rather than an actor?My name is Larry and I love food. I mean, seriously. I love to read about it, I love to cook it, and I seriously love to eat it. Most of the memoirs I’ve read have been written by chefs or have been about people’s love of food, so when I saw Stanley Tucci (one of my favorite actors) had written this book, I jumped on it like I would a buffet. (Hey, #fatboysgottafat.) Thursday: Veal cutlet sandwich or wedge with a small amount of butter and lettuce. This was in the days of affordable veal. Also absent from “Taste” is a section of photo color plates that seems to be the usual stylistic formula for celebrity memoirs. Although this isn’t a hugely tragic departure; it would have been nice.