Taste: My Life Through Food

An award-winning actor, Tucci is also an accomplished director, producer, and writer. His previous books include The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table. Currently, he is appearing in Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy on CNN. In this memoir, Tucci reveals himself as a discerning critic, a doting son and father, a passionate lover of people and food, and an often profanely funny man. He takes food, and his family’s legacy of recipes, quite seriously, but he knows how to crack a joke when the moment warrants it. He is fond of puns and the occasional corny “dad joke.” Taste: My Life Through Food details not only his idyllic childhood, the ups-and-downs of his acting career (mostly ups), and his personal relationships, but also his debilitating bout—ultimately overcome—with oral cancer.

The reader first meets the young Stanley in dialogue with his mother, talking about the duck that a television personality cooks. He devours a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and asks what’s for dinner with his mouth still full: this establishes that the story's protagonist is a person of appetites with an enduring passion for food. His childhood is both ordinary—his parents worked at the local high school; money was tight, but feeling loved and chasing joy were more memorable—and extraordinary.