Dinner in Rome. This item is unavailable.Dinner in Rome

'Viestad comes across as a genial companion, both confident and unassuming . . . avoids the florid excesses of much food writing and offers instead the simpler pleasures of a well-crafted book with satisfying body and depth.' - Financial Times

'Viestad . . . has had the strikingly good idea of writing a foodie history of the world by examining a single meal eaten there . . . [a] riveting volume.' - Paul Levy, The Spectator

'A perfect pairing of food and history.' - BBC History magazine

'As enchanting as it is fascinating: Andreas Viestad has a calm gift for evocative scene-setting, story-telling and, crucially, for making and exploring connections that bring everything illuminatingly to life.' - Nigella Lawson

'There is more history in a bowl of pasta than in the Colosseum', writes Andreas Viestad in Dinner in Rome. From the table of a classic Roman restaurant, Viestad takes us on a fascinating culinary exploration of The Eternal City, and global civilization. Food, he argues, is history's secret driving force. Viestad finds deeper meanings in his meal: From the bread that begins the dinner he traces the origins of wheat and its role in Rome's rise as well as its downfall. From his fried artichoke antipasto he explains olive oil's part in the religious conflict of 16th-century Europe. From his sorbet dessert he recounts how lemons featured in the history of the Mafia in the 19th century, and how the hunger for sugar fuelled the slave trade. Viestad's dinner may be local, but his story is universal. His 'culinary archaeology' is an entertaining, flavourful journey across the dinner table and time. You’ll never look at spaghetti carbonara the same way again.

Andreas Viestad is a food writer, TV chef, restaurateur and food activist. He is the longtime host of New Scandinavian Cooking and a former columnist of the Washington Post. He is the author of Kitchen of Light and Where Flavor was Born and lives between Oslo and Cape Town.