N R. (Moonpie) reviewed Rosemary and Bitter Oranges: Growing Up in a Tuscan Kitchen on + 1170 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
I throughly enjoyed this book. I expected it to be a boring book about family recipes but it didn't turn out that way at all.
This is a rare glimpse into an Italian childhood and the family she loved. It was entertaining and interesting. The vingenetes were very vivid. There is much humor like the time she talked her brother into putting the leftover dinner wine in her grandmothers prize chickens water!
I especially liked how she had wonderful famiy recipes and shared the place they had in her family and childhood but we very pleasantly wove them into her stories. Where the focus wasn't just on the recipe or the memory. The just seem to flow together.
A very good read, even if you aren't into italian cooking!
This is a rare glimpse into an Italian childhood and the family she loved. It was entertaining and interesting. The vingenetes were very vivid. There is much humor like the time she talked her brother into putting the leftover dinner wine in her grandmothers prize chickens water!
I especially liked how she had wonderful famiy recipes and shared the place they had in her family and childhood but we very pleasantly wove them into her stories. Where the focus wasn't just on the recipe or the memory. The just seem to flow together.
A very good read, even if you aren't into italian cooking!
Lenka S. reviewed Rosemary and Bitter Oranges: Growing Up in a Tuscan Kitchen on + 819 more book reviews
`Rosemary and Bitter Oranges' is a memoir of a contemporary writer's childhood, mostly around the age of eight years old, in the house of her grandparents (Nonna and Nonno), parents, and two siblings. The house is that of a pre-World War II upper middle class family of Livorno, in Tuscany, near the Tyrrhean seacoast. The time is the late 1950s, when the family has restored some of its lost wealth and position to the grandfather while father is a lieutenant and teacher in the nearby Italian naval academy.
The central character in the child's life is neither Mamma nor Nonna, but the cook and housekeeper, Emilia, who fits in every way the stereotype of a middle-aged Italian housekeeper. The first and most fascinating culinary memory in the story is the difference between the cuisine of the household eaten at the luncheon and dinner tables, and the cuisine that the housekeeper makes for herself and eats in the kitchen. The family's meal is described as almost entirely white, as if to avoid a mismatch with the custom Belgian white linen on the table. In contrast, Emilia's meals are a riot of reds and greens, and represent a major discovery for eight year old Patrizia.
Like Gennaro Contaldo's stories of his Campagnia childhood in the cookbook `Passione', and unlike some adult and second hand impressions of Italy, the descriptions of impressions, experiences, and memories are so strong, you can practically smell the starch in the linen and feel the polished brass and the cool tiles in the courtyard. There may be much metaphor in saying this, but it gives one the sense of how vivid and genuine the word pictures come across to the reader.
Unlike Patricia Volk's memoir `Stuffed' and Ruth Reichl's first memoir volume, `Tender at the Bone', there is not a very large cast of well painted characters filling these pages. All the aunts and uncles and grandparents and parents and siblings fill pretty much the roles expected of them for the little girl of the author's memories. Since this is a memoir of a culinary writer, it has, like Reichl's two volumes, a number of recipes within each chapter which are more like photographs used to illustrate the narrative rather than a serious source of culinary material. My most interesting find was the recipe for Emilia's marinara sauce which is almost identical to Mario Batali's simple sauce published in all his books, which includes carrots to sweeten the tart tomatoes. This is perfectly fitting, as Mario acquired his authentic Italian cuisine in Emilia-Romagna, just a few miles from the border with Toscana (Tuscany).
Another fascinating resonance with Mario Batali's is the description of Emilia at the great central open-air market in central Livorno. Batali constantly states that every Italian housewife believes it is her god given right to get the very best piece of meat or vegetable available that day. Judging from Ms. Chen's description of Emilia's tactics at the meat counter, this rather benign Batali picture doesn't even come close to describing the cutthroat behavior of Italians at the market. Your average American who politely takes their paper queue chit and quietly waits their turn at the deli counter would be totally out of place. At the Italian counter, there is no queue and the ladies use every trick in the book to advance their position relative to that particularly attractive lamb shoulder in the display case.
CONSLUSION:
The only fault with the book is that though beautifully written, the stories are never quite fleshed out. The stories are interesting vibrant and beautifully written, but at the same time they seem to be just so-so deep. They bring up interesting subjects and are engrossing enough to make want you to know EVERYTHING about this or that particular event. And the next thing you know you are reading something else entirely, and the you are left with "whaaat?" feeling as the story just moves on, never giving you full satisfaction. It is a solid 3.5star book. It is very good but having said that it must be said that it falls short of others in cookbook/memoir books such as Ruth Reichl's.
The central character in the child's life is neither Mamma nor Nonna, but the cook and housekeeper, Emilia, who fits in every way the stereotype of a middle-aged Italian housekeeper. The first and most fascinating culinary memory in the story is the difference between the cuisine of the household eaten at the luncheon and dinner tables, and the cuisine that the housekeeper makes for herself and eats in the kitchen. The family's meal is described as almost entirely white, as if to avoid a mismatch with the custom Belgian white linen on the table. In contrast, Emilia's meals are a riot of reds and greens, and represent a major discovery for eight year old Patrizia.
Like Gennaro Contaldo's stories of his Campagnia childhood in the cookbook `Passione', and unlike some adult and second hand impressions of Italy, the descriptions of impressions, experiences, and memories are so strong, you can practically smell the starch in the linen and feel the polished brass and the cool tiles in the courtyard. There may be much metaphor in saying this, but it gives one the sense of how vivid and genuine the word pictures come across to the reader.
Unlike Patricia Volk's memoir `Stuffed' and Ruth Reichl's first memoir volume, `Tender at the Bone', there is not a very large cast of well painted characters filling these pages. All the aunts and uncles and grandparents and parents and siblings fill pretty much the roles expected of them for the little girl of the author's memories. Since this is a memoir of a culinary writer, it has, like Reichl's two volumes, a number of recipes within each chapter which are more like photographs used to illustrate the narrative rather than a serious source of culinary material. My most interesting find was the recipe for Emilia's marinara sauce which is almost identical to Mario Batali's simple sauce published in all his books, which includes carrots to sweeten the tart tomatoes. This is perfectly fitting, as Mario acquired his authentic Italian cuisine in Emilia-Romagna, just a few miles from the border with Toscana (Tuscany).
Another fascinating resonance with Mario Batali's is the description of Emilia at the great central open-air market in central Livorno. Batali constantly states that every Italian housewife believes it is her god given right to get the very best piece of meat or vegetable available that day. Judging from Ms. Chen's description of Emilia's tactics at the meat counter, this rather benign Batali picture doesn't even come close to describing the cutthroat behavior of Italians at the market. Your average American who politely takes their paper queue chit and quietly waits their turn at the deli counter would be totally out of place. At the Italian counter, there is no queue and the ladies use every trick in the book to advance their position relative to that particularly attractive lamb shoulder in the display case.
CONSLUSION:
The only fault with the book is that though beautifully written, the stories are never quite fleshed out. The stories are interesting vibrant and beautifully written, but at the same time they seem to be just so-so deep. They bring up interesting subjects and are engrossing enough to make want you to know EVERYTHING about this or that particular event. And the next thing you know you are reading something else entirely, and the you are left with "whaaat?" feeling as the story just moves on, never giving you full satisfaction. It is a solid 3.5star book. It is very good but having said that it must be said that it falls short of others in cookbook/memoir books such as Ruth Reichl's.
