A 14-minute meal of olives and rocket hiding in a tangle of spaghetti, and doused in anchovy oil and lemon-scented ricotta
One of the nine books that never leaves the overflowing shelf of my desk is Gillian Riley’s translation of a book by Giacomo Castelvetro. Castelvetro was born into a noble family in Modena in 1546 and died, penniless, in London in 1616. In between, he lived an adventurous and peripatetic life, which Riley describes nimbly in the introduction. What is significant here is that in 1614, while living with the Newton family at Elthem park, Castelvetro penned A Brief Account of the Fruit, Herbs and Vegetables of Italy, which is dedicated to Lucy, Countess of Bedford. A copy now permanently sits on my desk, alongside eight other books, unopened bank statements and other accumulated clutter.
Just 75 pages long and divided into seasons, it’s a lively, opinionated and overwhelmingly gentle book about the Italian fruits and vegetables Castelvetro loved (some of which were also grown in England). In her foreword to the translation, Jane Grigson notes that it was clearly a book written for a privileged, cosmopolitan group, and that Castelvetro had little idea of what the majority of the population were eating. This doesn’t make it any less of a joyful ode to the seasons and what they provide, with most of it still relevant today: broad beans and peas, sweet strawberries, leafy celery, the astringent delights of quince, speckled apples, feathery-topped carrots and chestnut-brown field mushrooms.
Continue reading...from Lifestyle | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2V0Royu