Delightful satire set in the hills of Italy

Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson

Book on Amazon | My review on Amazon

5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed January 28, 2005

Best thing about the book is the dual perspective it is written from – alternate sections are written in the first person of two different people, Gerald, a ghostwriter, and Marta, a film music composer. They start off thinking the worst of each other, by and by modifying their opinions only slightly – thinking the other is a well-meaning but blundering, drunken fool.

It is an outrageously comic commentary on a wide variety of subjects such as filmmaking, possible explanations for UFO-sightings, rebels from ex-Soviet bloc countries, and so on.

Gerald being a self-professed “great cook” creates these ridiculous tongue-in-cheek recipes like “Chocolate coated and deep-fried mussels” with a perfectly straight face. Extraordinary quantities of Fernet Branca, a bitter Italian liqueur, is drunk throughout by all the characters, and all of Gerald’s recipes contain Fernet Branca, giving the book its incongruous title.