Summer Reading

The Unprejudiced Palate: Classic Thoughts On Food and The Good Life

by Angelo Pellegrini, edited by Ruth Reichl

Modern Library Food, 235 pp., $13.95 (paper)

When the Modern Library decided to reissue a handful of great cookbooks, attempting to save them from oblivion, they could not have made a more inspired choice than The Unprejudiced Palate. Written by Italian immigrant Angelo Pellegrini in 1948, the book chronicles his journey from near-starvation in pre-war Italy to the blessings of prosperity in America. Reverence for food and its preparation sings from the pages.

Born around 1900, Pellegrini paints a picture of peasant life in Italy that's far from our romanticized ideal. At the time, the population had far outstripped the food supply, and young boys spent their time not going to school, but gathering manure on the roads (to sell for food), gathering sticks (to sell for food), and snaring songbirds (to eat). The sheer abundance of America was a revelation and one that Pellegrini never took for granted throughout his long life. He went to school, became a professor of English, and turned his lawn into a garden.

Fifty years before the American food revolution, Pelligrini advocated eating locally and seasonally. He grew his own vegetables and fruits, made his own wine, and cooked for his family with enthusiasm. In writing this book, he gathered together all of his gardening wisdom, his recipes, his methods of winemaking, and his forceful opinions, and it reads like it just rolled off the presses. Filled with excellent advice and brimming with love of life, it is a truly useful and fascinating culinary memoir, one I find myself turning to again and again.