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Florence, 1466. A lust for life, a passion for power and a taste for adventure…
In Florence, everyone has a passion. With 60,000 souls inside the city, crammed into a cobweb of clattering streets, countless alleys, towers, workshops, tanneries, cloisters, churches and burial grounds, they live their lives in the narrow world between the walls. Nino Latini knows that if you want to survive without losing yourself completely, then you’ve got to have a passion.
But Nino’s greatest gift will be his greatest curse. Nino can taste things that other people cannot. Every flavour, every ingredient comes alive for him as vividly as a painting and he puts his artistry to increasingly extravagant use.
In an age of gluttony and conspicuous consumption, his unique talent leads him into danger. His desire for the beautiful Tessina Delmazza and his longing to create the perfect feast could prove deadly. Nino must flee Florence to save his life and if he ever wants to see his beloved again, he must entrust himself entirely to the tender mercies of fortune.
In Florence, everyone has a passion. With 60,000 souls inside the city, crammed into a cobweb of clattering streets, countless alleys, towers, workshops, tanneries, cloisters, churches and burial grounds, they live their lives in the narrow world between the walls. Nino Latini knows that if you want to survive without losing yourself completely, then you’ve got to have a passion.
But Nino’s greatest gift will be his greatest curse. Nino can taste things that other people cannot. Every flavour, every ingredient comes alive for him as vividly as a painting and he puts his artistry to increasingly extravagant use.
In an age of gluttony and conspicuous consumption, his unique talent leads him into danger. His desire for the beautiful Tessina Delmazza and his longing to create the perfect feast could prove deadly. Nino must flee Florence to save his life and if he ever wants to see his beloved again, he must entrust himself entirely to the tender mercies of fortune.
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Reviews
A celebration of the senses: what Patrick Suskind's Perfume did for scents, this does for flavours. A love story which will also appeal to fans of Joanne Harris' CHOCOLAT . . . The ultimate foodie version of Perfume, this is an addictive page-turner filled with lavish literary gastro-porn.
This intense, sprawling and addictive page-turner filled with often sensuous prose engages all the senses and is a triumph of energy and colour which brings medieval Italy to life. If you like an intelligent, engaging and exquisitely written story as a change from the drab brutality of modern crime, settle down with a good bottle of wine and enter Nino's world.
Kazan's rich, sensuous prose is always a pleasure.
APPETITE by Philip Kazan has had me salivating. Yes Kazan writes good food . . . [Florence] is wonderfully evoked . . . Delicious stuff.
Kazan brings medieval Italy to life with an astonishing degree of historical detail. Appetite has the vivid colours of Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring and the sharp odours of Patrick Süskind's Perfume . . . Readers will certainly come away with an appetite for more.
A delicious and mouth-watering read, this is a novel which engages all the senses.
Intense, sprawling and most convincing
Ambitious and engrossing . . . a novel of exceptional energy and colour