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  • Published: 30 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448114672
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

Risotto With Nettles

A Memoir with Food




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

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.

  • Published: 30 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448114672
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

About the author

Anna Del Conte

Anna Del Conte is the doyenne of Italian cookery. Her books include the acclaimed Portrait of Pasta, Gastronomy of Italy and Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes. She won the Duchessa Maria Luigia di Parma award for Gastronomy of Italy, and has won awards from the Guild of Food Writers and the Academia Italiana della Cucina. In 2010 Anna received from the president of the Italian Republic the honour of Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica italiana in recognition of the work she does for Italy and Italian food in this country. In 2011 Nigella Lawson presented her with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Guild of Food Writers. She lives in Dorset.

Also by Anna Del Conte

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Praise for Risotto With Nettles

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

A well-mannered memoir of an engaging life, laced with recipes

Mail on Sunday, You magazine

Anyone who cooks should have Anna's books, it is the simple truth, along with the fact that she is, I'm telling you the best writer on Italian food there is...Anna Del Conte is unutterably chic and to be relished

Nigella, Observer Food Monthly

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

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

Double the pleasure with the great Anna del Conte's lovely memoir with food

Elisabeth Luard, The Scotsman

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

Recipe-stuffed... Rich in mouth-watering prose, this is proof indeed that food doesn't just nourish your body but also your soul

Metro

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