Most people hope for a spot of serendipity: a discovery made by accident while looking for something else.
The author, an Italian food and wine professional who founded high-end global food chain Eataly, has enlisted experts from around the world to help him present these short essays on the serendipitous, and sometimes amazing, developments in the fields of food and drink.
In his introduction to Serendipity, Farinetti urges his readers to sample the product about which they are reading in each chapter.
In one sitting, readers could nibble on anchovies, sip the traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena, drink Barolo wine, eat luscious brownies (recipes included), and wash it all down with coffee, champagne or even Coca-Cola. And that’s just the first few chapters. In all, Farinetti explores 47 different foodstuffs or drinks, outlining how each was developed, often from a fortuitous mistake.
That luscious chocolate and cream filling for cakes called ganache has the most unlikely genesis; and the chapter on cornflakes gives Farinetti the chance to tell the story of the two Kellogg brothers running a sanatorium at Battle Creek, Michigan. How their lives and beliefs differed is the stuff of legend, particularly when one decided to patent the recipe for the flakes of corn produced accidentally in 1894, resulting in years of court cases and no spoken communication between the brothers from 1906 until their deaths around 40 years later.
Farinetti turns his gaze on monks making Chartreuse, the ice-cream cone, Russian salad, panettone, potato chips, popcorn and even Nutella, not forgetting the travesty to Italians of spaghetti bolognese.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
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