2009
Stampa Alternativa, RomaM. Guidi
pdf
This cookbook explains culinary methods which apply the limited available resources found within cells. Each list of ingredients, in fact, is preceded by a list of necessary tools. Their construction and uses are described and illustrated: a broom handle becomes a rolling pin, shoelaces tie up rolled pancetta for seasoning, a television set produces the heat necessary for the rising of pizza and bread dough in the otherwise chilly cells, cupboards and stools are transformed into ovens.
Conceived in 2009, it was developed in person and via letter over three years and involved approximately thirty inmates, most of whom have life sentences, living in six maximum security penitentiaries throughout Italy (three in the north, one in the centre and two in the south).
This book is more than a manual for discovering simple, hearty recipes; it speaks of prison, specifically of life-imprisonment. If food is communication, herein, a door opens onto an unexpected channel, thus stimulating curiosity. Life-sentence prisoners combine formulas, giving shape to the illusion of a normality that is pursued but unattainable. And through the rhythms of the kitchen, they teach us the tempo of patience, but with a specific variation: here, it is the “forced” and “necessary” patience necessary for survival [Francesca de Carolis, Writer].