Tucci searches, throughout the book, not just for a taste of something delicious but a taste of something authentic. This is in keeping with his Italian roots—he seeks a connection to his cultural identity and his ideas about artistic expression. These positions are sometimes at odds with each other; there are rules that are sacrosanct, like the pairing of pasta shapes with particular sauces, and rules that can be bent, if not totally broken, by the exigencies of creative reinterpretation. What binds these two occasionally contradictory impulses together is that they stand against the overwhelming forces of capitalism—symbolized by America itself—that seek to homogenize and dilute cultural authenticity and creative endeavor. Thus, Tucci renders himself an iconoclast, someone who wants to make a “foreign film” as an American (Big Night), who wants to celebrate his ordinariness by emphasizing his exceptionality, and who seeks satisfaction in the simplicity of complex and contested culinary legacies.

After emphasizing his conventional childhood, growing up as a free-range kid in a middle-class family that occasionally had to pinch pennies, Tucci flips this narrative on its head to highlight what was different and exceptional about his family. Not only is his mother an “extraordinary” cook (1), but she is, comparatively speaking, “like [.