Giorgio Locatelli
The Observer, Sunday 24 September 2006
It took Giorgio Locatelli five years to put together his definitive, 600-page Italian recipe book and memoir, Made in Italy. Full of mouth-watering dishes from his home country, it’s got everything from delicious pasta and fish, to amazing risottos and meat.
My first feelings for cooking came from my grandmother, Vincenzina. But my first understanding of the relationship between food, sex, wine and the excitement of life came together for me very early on. I grew up in the village of Corgeno on the shores of Lake Comabbio in the north of Italy. My uncle and auntie, with the help of my granddad, built our hotel and restaurant, La Cinzianella, in the village in 1963. I helped out in the restaurant from the age of five until I got my first proper job in a kitchen when I turned 16. In Corgeno, there were eight founding families. The Caletti family, on my mother’s side, was one of them; and on my grandmother’s side, the Tamborini family, along with my cousins, the Gnocchi family, who have a pastry shop in Gallarate, near Milan – the speciality is gorgeous soft amaretti biscuits. It was in this shop that I got my first taste of an industrial kitchen – the ovens were so big that you could walk into them. I loved it.
“Made in Italy” is quite simply the perfect book. So many books are rattled off to accompany television series that when you come across the real thing, written in its own time and to its own agenda, it really hits you between the eyes! Buy this and you’ll never want to look at another Italian cookbook again.’ Gordon Ramsay, Times
‘This book is nothing short of a masterpiece.’ Nigel Slater
‘Packed with delicious recipes, many from his restaurant, and the reminiscences from his life, it is the ultimate gift for anyone interested in Italian food.’ Telegraph ‘
(Locatelli’s) “Made in Italy”, is my Book of the Year and puts everything else I have on my Italian shelf in the shade.’ Nigel Slater, Observer Food Monthly
‘”Made in Italy” by the flamboyant Italian chef Giorgio Locatelli is such a fashionable combination of charming anecdotes and stories about his family that could double as recipes.’ Saturday Telegraph Magazine
‘Giorgio Locatelli’s “Made in Italy” is a beautiful, evocative book, looking not just at traditional Italian ingredients and local recipes but also at local traditions and the memories! deserves to become a classic.’ Waterstones Books Quarterly
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