Serendipity: A History of Accidental Culinary Discoveries

Eataly founder Oscar Farinetti reveals the accidental, serendipitous discoveries that gave birth to some of the world's most well-known gastronomic delights.Did you know that your morning coffee could be thanks to a herd of energetic goats? Or that a forgotten ingredient is behind the invention of the beloved brownie? Who got the fright of their life discovering corn could pop? And which popular soft drink first started out as a medicinal syrup?In Serendipity, Oscar Farinetti, founder of the high-end global food chain Eataly, shares fifty remarkable stories of how some of the greatest successes and examples of excellence in the food world came about by chance, from the invention of foods such as tarte tatin to the sandwich, as well as products like Nutella and corn flakes, plus some of the world's best wines, Gorgonzola cheese, balsamic vinegar, French fries, rum, and even the ice-cream cone. As Farinetti dives deep into these extraordinary histories, insightful and entertaining interviews with leading artisan food producers, chefs, inventors, and CEOs around the world provide additional color and rare context. The result is a remarkable read that explores humankind's never-ending quest to discover something new and reminds us that our mistakes, our flaws, and our failures can often be the most necessary ingredient in finding success.

ISBN-13: 9781954641181

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Apollo Publishers

Publication Date: 11-01-2022

Pages: 304

Product Dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

Oscar Farinetti is an Italian businessman and investor. He founded the high-end food chain Eataly in 2007 and today it has thirty-seven locations around the world, including in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, and Toronto. He has been interviewed or covered by all major US media from the New York Times to Bloomberg. He lives in Italy. Barbara McGilvray has been translating from Italian to English for over thirty years. She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2016. She lives in Australia.

Read an Excerpt

SERENDIPITY

The beauty of making mistakes 

We make a lot of mistakes, and often we take the wrong path. Some­times we’re looking for something we’ve lost and instead we find something else we were searching for. It happens because we’re imper­fect. But that’s not a bad thing.

Anyway, there’s no such thing as perfection. And if there were it would be boring and there’d be no incentive to grow. Imperfection spurs us on to become better; to become better we have to put in the hard yards, and make mistakes along the way. Then there are accidents, events outside our control that we have to live with and adjust to, pos­sibly taking us in a new direction.

Sometimes things happen that actually change the course of history. Think of the meteorite that shattered near Yucatán in Mexico sixty-six million years ago. Basically it caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. If that meteorite hadn’t smashed into Earth, we human beings probably wouldn’t exist. Or at least we wouldn’t be who we are today.

In short, for about three and a half billion years—ever since life first appeared on Earth—a vast number of accidents, mistakes and adapta­tions have led to the result we have today. We humans are the product of a series of imperfections that have had some degree of success you might say, considering that of all the living beings we’re the ones who have taken charge of the planet. At least that’s how it looks to us. We got to this point thanks to our inventions—a multitude of discoveries, from fire right up to the internet.

In order to invent you need to do research. Sometimes you set off in the right direction and get where you wanted to go, or you happen to take the wrong path and you fail. But there are times when you take a particular direction to reach a given goal and stumble on another one you weren’t expecting. Which might be even better. Spectacular exam­ples include Christopher Columbus, who went looking for the Indies and discovered America. Penicillin and X-rays were both created by mis­take, as were the microwave oven, cellophane, Teflon, dynamite and Post-it Notes.

In 1754, Horace Walpole coined the word “serendipity” to describe a discovery you make by accident when you were looking for something else. His inspiration was an old Persian fable about three princes, the sons of King Giaffer of Serendip (modern-day Sri Lanka). The princes travelled the world, continually (and always accidentally) discovering things they weren’t looking for.

But the word “serendipity” is not just used for inventions. There’s serendipity in love (you miss your train, get the next one and find the person of your dreams), in literature (“Serendipity is common when you’re writing a poem: you’re aiming to conquer the Indies and you get to America,” wrote Andrea Zanzotti), and in film (think Sliding Doors).

In this book I tell the great serendipitous stories relating to my area of profession: food. I’ve been involved with food and wine as a profes­sional for nearly twenty years, but as an amateur for more than double that. In studying the history of various foods, I’ve come across some amaz­ing cases of serendipity. A good many of the stories I tell in this book are conventional, in the sense that they’re about hugely successful and well-known dishes or drinks, like Coca-Cola and gorgonzola. Others are about great things that have come from trying to fix a mistake, an oversight or an accident, for example panettone, Russian salad, and Guinness. Others are about dishes, ingredients or drinks worth including just because their origins are so bizarre, including chili, Barolo, and Milanese risotto.

While I was writing these stories it occurred to me there’s an “absolute” serendipity, the most important of all—humankind—and so, with the help of a scholar, I have included that story too.

In order to tell these stories, I had a conversation with people who know a lot more than I do about the inventions in question. Produc­ers, bon vivants, cooks, pastry chefs, artists, scientists—a varied slice of humanity I think provides crucial added value to this book. A book by someone who meets people with more talent than himself every day, and would like to pass on what he’s learnt. I hope you enjoy the read.

PS: A suggestion for all of you who enjoy good food and drink: as you’re reading, I recommend sampling the product that’s the subject of the chapter. Our enjoyment is doubled when we know more about what we’re tasting. I’ve done this experiment with friends and trust me, it works!

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Table of Contents

Serendipity: The Beauty of Making Mistakes

1. Anchovies From the Cantabrian Sea: A Timely Shipwreck

2. Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena: Silence, Do Not Disturb!

3. Amarone: Bungled Wine

4. The Neapolitan Babà: From France, With Love

5. Barolo: Call Me a Madman

6. Jujube Broth: The Joy of “Broth”

7. Brownies: When Forgetting Means Good Fortune

8. Caesar Salad: Something Spectacular from Almost Nothing

9. Coffee: Caffeinated Goats

10. Champagne: Terroir Is Not Just Geography

11. Chartreuse: Elixir For a Long Life

12. Coca-Cola: Good Medicine, That!

13. The Ice-Cream Cone: A Democratic and Sustainable Treat

14. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes: A Family Feud

15. The Neapolitan Cutlet: The Burnt Crumb Cover-Up

16. Crêpe Suzette and Tarte Tatin: A Tale of Two Unexpected Treats

17. The Farinata: Simplicity Is Not Easy

18. Finocchiona: From Finocchio to Infinocchio

19. Chianti’s Black Rooster: The Hungry Insomniac Rooster of Florence

20. Chocolate Ganache: Numbskull! What Have You Done?

21. The Icy Pole . . . And The Penguin: Freedom to Eat On the Move

22. Gianduiotto: The Perfume of Life

23. Gorgonzola: Churchill’s Cheese

24. Burnt Flour: Dignity Rediscovered

25. The Grissino: The “Little Sticks of Turin”

26. Guinness: That Fortuitous Fire

27. Ice Wine/Eiswein: The Frosts of the Old Days

28. Russian Salad: Sometimes Things Return

29. Marsala: A Marvelous Victim

30. Negroni Sbagliato: Liquid Anthropology

31. Nutella: An Optimistic Product

32. The Panettone: Toni’s Bread

33. Chips: Respect for the Humble Potato

34. The Chili: Provoker of Unhealthy Intentions

35. Popcorn: Crazy, Edible Bomb

36. Ravioli or Agnolotti: Actually Raviole al Plini: Serendipity Unknown

37. Milanese Risotto: A Blank Sheet

38. Rum: Contemporary Serendipity

39. Worcestershire Sauce: That Measure in the Bloody Mary

40. The Panino: The Italian Sandwich

41. Sauternes: Noble Mold

42. Spaghetti Bolognese: A Mischievous Prank?

43. The White Truffle: Blessed Be the Gift

44. Tofu: When a Population Falls in Love

45. Capri Cake: A Scrumptious Scare

46. Yogurt: Genghis Khan’s Energy Drink

47. Verdigris: Don’t Steal My Grapes

48. Humankind: Absolute Serendipity

Epilogue

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