Rating: 
Summary: Hugely entertaining
Review: Ugo DiFonte, the second son of a peasant sheep farmer in 16th century Italy, is widowed young with a baby daughter, and by chance becomes the official food taster for Duke Federico Basillione DiVincelli, the Duke of Corsoli. Though this elevates his position considerably, it also places him amidst castle intrigues that constantly endanger his position -- even his life -- from both above and below.He survives attempted poisonings, the plague, and household intrigues; learns from his daughter how to write; and eventually writes his fantastic tale, which includes highly memorable meals, sex, and several brushes with death. The action and humor are often quite earthy and bawdy. Although the style is mostly picaresque (as well as part fairy tale and part Monty Python), there are also genuine moments of threat, tenderness, and lightly philosophical musings appropriate to the narrator's time and station. "I asked God if perhaps He had not mistaken us for someone else," he remarks early on. Much later, Ugo says, "The more I thought about this, the more it seemed what people thought were God's mysteries were really mistakes." As his daughter Miranda's fortunes begin to climb above his own, Ugo laments, "I wanted to cross the room to her bedside and hold her in my arms and tell her that I would always care for her, but the way had become so crowded with our ambition that I could not get through." "Translated" by actor and writer Peter Elbling (whose credits include the screenplay for "Honey I Blew Up the Kids"), this rollicking tale was understandably an international bestseller before making it back to our shores.
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