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Don Alfonso 1890: Una storia che sa di favola
By Maria Orsini Natale
128 pages, Hardcover: 42,00 euros
Publisher: AvaglianoAEEditore
Reviewed by Lucy Gordan
Attenzione!
Attenzione! Italophones should immediately order Maria Orsini
Natale's new book, "un cunto" (Neapolitan for racconto
or story), which gracefully weaves its way along the Gulfs of Salerno and
Naples as well as through local history and gastronomy. Beautifully illustrated
with photographs by Stefano Scatą, Don Alfonso 1890 is a history of
pasta from the poet Horace's beloved lągane to the present;
followed by a history of the Iaccarino dynasty beginning with grandfather Costanzo
Alfonso Iaccarino, the founder in 1890 of the legendary Pensione Iaccarino,
his son Ernesto, and Alfonso, the present-day owner of the magical restaurant
"Don Alfonso 1890," in Sant'Agata sui Due Golfi, above Sorrento and
Amalfi, considered the fifth best restaurant in Italy, and his sons, Ernesto
and Mario. It ends with 25 recipes of Don Alfonso's pasta and rice dishes
— a consolation prize for those readers who cannot taste his culinary
masterpieces first-hand.
Don Alfonso 1890 is Maria Orsini Natale's first book of non-fiction, but not her first about pasta. Her first and multi-awarded novel, Francesca e Nunziata (1995), traces the dreams, passions, and sufferings of a mother and daughter in a patriarchal family of pastai or pasta-makers from the Amalfi Coast between 1848 and 1940. Translated into German and Dutch but not English, it was also made into a movie of the same name directed by Lina Wertmüller and starring Sophia Loren, Giancarlo Giannini, Raoul Bova, and Claudia Gerini.
Natale, who lives in Torre Annunziata at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius, has written a second novel, Il terrazzo della villa rosa (1998), a volume of poetry, Canto a tre voci (1999), and two of short stories, La bambina dietro la porta (2000) and Cieli di carta (2002), all set in the Naples area and published by AvaglianoAEEditore.