Risotto With Nettles

Book excerpt: A wonderful, evocative memoir by the woman who first brought Italian cooking to Britain and fuelled a culinary revolution. 'Anyone who cooks should have Anna's books, it is the simple truth' Nigella Lawson Born in Milan, Anna del Conte grew up in Italy in a gentler time. When war came to Italy everything changed: her family had to abandon their apartment and the city for the countryside, where the peasants still ate well, but life was dangerous... As a teenager, Anna became used to throwing herself into a ditch as the strafing planes flew over, and was imprisoned, twice. Her story is informed and enlivened by the food and memories of her native land - from lemon granita to wartime risotto with nettles, from vitello tonnato to horsemeat roll, from pastas to porcini. Anna arrived in England in 1949 to a culinary wasteland. She married an Englishman and stayed on, and while bringing up her children, she wrote books which inspired a new generation of cooks. This is a memoir of a life seen through food - each chapter rounded off with mouthwatering recipes.