Book editor Michael Szczerban joins us in the studio to talk about The Talisman of Happiness, a book he worked over a decade to have translated from Italian into English. As we find out, it’s an iconic (and quite unwieldy—1,680 recipes!) text that its author, Ada Boni, originally published in 1929. The book’s influence cannot be overstated, and for first-time readers, it gives insight into the foundational Italian cooking that we still see today. Michael shares how he was introduced to the book by Samin Nosrat while editing Salt Fat Acid Heat, which sent him down many dead-end roads toward acquiring it for publication in English. This is a wonderful conversation for Italian food nerds like us.
Matt Rodbard is the editor in chief of TASTE and the author of Koreaworld: A Cookbook, Koreatown: A Cookbook, a New York Times Bestseller, and Food IQ, a Publishers Weekly Bestseller and winner of a 2023 IACP Cookbook Award (Food Issues & Matters)
