An Unprejudiced Palate

"Pellegrini is, in many ways, my hero. He’s such an advocate for paying attention to life. There is a point where he says what a lost opportunity it is if you bring someone in to do your cooking or your gardening. There’s real joy to be found in doing these things for yourself. The pride in making your own wine, growing your own food, sitting down at the table and serving people something that is really the fruit of your own hands. He has this connection to the earth, and at the same time he’s an intellectual. His lectures on Shakespeare were legendary. I’ve actually met his granddaughter. They’re a wonderfully close-knit family. To me, it’s the ideal life. He does. We’re all addicted to leisure. We all want to sit and watch TV at night or whatever. He’s making bread or is out in the garden. He’s not wasting one minute of his life. It is. It’s called The Unprejudiced Palate , but in fact it’s the most prejudiced palate that ever walked the earth. The idea that this book came out when it did [1948], and that he was living like this, in a city [Seattle], is remarkable to me. It was so against the grain of American life in the 1950s. People didn’t live like that then. Lots of people are trying to live like that now, but he really was out of step at that point, but held on to his convictions. But now you can get good bread! In those days you couldn’t. But yes, if you want an apple, unless you have a farmer’s market, you’re probably getting apples that were picked a year ago in China. They’re either Delicious or McIntosh, which can be picked green, ripened with ethylene and left forever. It was starting when Pellegrini was writing and it got worse. That tends to be true until they adopt the American diet. When they get enough money suddenly they’re eating at McDonalds instead. His recipes are terrific. You could pick just about any recipe in the book. One thing he makes a huge push for is eating the kinds of greens, the bitter greens, that Americans tend not to like – so he has recipes for cardoons and chicory and dandelion greens, all of which are terrific. Any of the pasta dishes he talks about are really good. I find all his recipes just really, really inspiring. I was talking earlier about the omelette with intestines. I desperately want to make that now. I don’t think so. I think they are easy. My basic belief is that cooking is easy. We’ve made it complicated, because everybody wants to be able to make everything. But if you’re not demanding of yourself that you make chef-quality food, or that you know everything about French, Chinese, Japanese and Indian cuisine, cooking is what we do naturally. November 8, 2012. Updated: November 15, 2022 Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected] Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you've enjoyed this interview, please support us by donating a small amount ."