The Perfect Egg - Hardcover

Buzzi, Aldo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582346046 ISBN 13: 9781582346045

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2005

Synopsis

A witty and erudite little book about the joys of food, with line drawings by New Yorker artist Saul Steinberg.

"The writer who never talks about eating, about appetite, hunger, food, about cooks and meals, arouses my suspicion, as though some vital element were missing in him." Scholarly, playful, idiosyncratic, and witty, Aldo Buzzi's The Perfect Egg is an excursion into the food that has obsessed, provoked, and intrigued the author through his life. A book of genial and highly refined chat, enriched with personal anecdotes, recipes, and quotations from literature and history, it is a tribute to the profound pleasures of food. Along the way, the reader discovers recipes from Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and the United States, related by Buzzi in a tone that is casual but delightfully attentive to detail. He writes about how to make lime soup, what goes into an olla podrida, varieties of futurist cuisine, the difference between edible and inedible pigeons, and the emotional resonance of overcooked pasta. And, of course, he reveals how to cook the perfect egg.

About this title

About the Author:

Aldo Buzzi was born in Como in 1910. He is an architect and an essayist who worked in Italian cinema and as a publisher for many years. Aldo Buzzi lives in Milan.

Saul Steinberg (1914–1999) was one of America's best-loved artists, renowned for the drawings that appeared in the New Yorker and for the artwork exhibited internationally in museums and galleries. He and Aldo Buzzi met in architecture school in Milan in the 1930s and remained close friends until Steinberg's death.

From The New Yorker:

This collection of ruminations on cuisine and cookery offers the perspective of a refined palate wed to a lively intellect. Buzzi expounds upon the olla podrida beloved by Sancho Panza in "Don Quixote" (the ancient Greek precursor of which had a name a hundred and eighty-four letters long) and ponders Kafka's eating habits, noting that his Czech name means "crow," a bird that makes a fine soup. Illustrations by Saul Steinberg are fittingly whimsical: a lunch menu that includes a dental chart; a place setting made up of a hammer, pliers, and screwdriver. Examples of Buzzi's urbane culinary style can be found throughout the book. A recipe for ṕcula ad caval (horsemeat stew) concludes, "A distant, almost imperceptible whinny will warn the person who is familiar with horses that the dish is now cooked."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1582346046
• ISBN 13: 9781582346045
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160
• Illustrator: Steinberg Saul