The Fusion of Cuisine

Book Review by Guest Blogger Chris Manganaro The idea of fusing two different genres of food together is fascinating. While it may not always seem or sound delicious, it can be shocking to taste these amalgamations come together into an amazing new taste. When one gets married, they try to combine two completely different people into one working partnership. In The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love by Michelle Maisto, the author finds herself constantly striving to find the right combination of components to make her life, and soon to be marriage, work. It is interesting to see Maisto and her fiancé, Rich, try to work out their meals throughout the book. Everyone knows how it is to try to figure out what to have for dinner each night, yet their interactions have specific complications that may not affect everyone. For instance, Maisto is not exactly vegetarian or anything, at least she doesn't describe it as such, but she does not eat meat. Rich on the other hand does and is very picky about what type of meals will be "filling" in his opinion. On top of this, he has a sensitive stomach that cannot take too much tomato sauce. Alright, so really, there are probably many people who can understand these types of issues, but they are presented well. Despite the fact that Maisto struggles through these talks with Rich every day, she still enjoys it even late in the game. This is probably important to her marriage considering Rich seems rather uninterested and frankly, a little annoying at times. People don't think about it, but food is a very important bonding experience between human beings. It is only a shame that Maisto never manages any sort of fusion cuisine between her own heritage, Italian, with riches Chinese background. This is where things could have been more interesting in the book. Rather than combining, there is a lot of compromise between the two. This is also important, though, as marriage needs compromise. In the end, Maisto's book uses the idea of creation and combining in different ways to make a point about marriage. Maisto, being unmarried right up till the end of her memoir, does not seem to reach every conclusion, but she may be on her way. For more on food and recipes and cuisine get your copy of the Gourmand World Award Winning Book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking: Holidays & Special Occasions-2nd edition