Serendipity: From Truffles and Champagne to Corn Flakes and Coffee: Stories of Accidental Success

by Oscar Farinetti, Barbara McGilvray Narrated by Barbara McGilvray

Overview

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 listen 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.

Editorial Reviews

Saturday Paper (Melbourne)

Its structure of short stories makes it incredibly easy to pick up, put down, and then come back to…It is illuminating and slightly addictive to discover new and interesting facts about the history of food and drinks.”

New York Times

History and happenstance meet in forty-eight well-researched examples.”

Cronache di Gusto (Italy)

An elegy to imperfection…That imperfection that stimulates you, motivates you, and opens new horizons.”

The Age (Melbourne)

Mouth-watering fun, told with the relish of a gourmand.”

SAWeekend (Australia)

Who put the bubbles in champagne?…This book will quickly turn you from food bore to knowlegable, giving the reader an easy way to impress over drinks and dinner…Highly recommended.”

Library Journal

Mix[es] fact and lore to provide an entertaining collection that food connoisseurs will enjoy…like an oral history, lovingly preserved in book form.”

Chef Andrew McConnell

This book explores the happy accidents that happen in the world of food and wine. A terrific and insightful read.”

AudioFile

Lanser is the perfect narrator for this volume because he makes the detailed chapters engaging by delivering them at an energetic pace.”

From the Publisher

Serendipity is a collection of fifty mouthwatering tales . . . storytelling for the pleasure of the palate.” —Rock’n’Read

“An elegy to imperfection . . . That imperfection that stimulates you, motivates you, and opens new horizons.” —Cronache Diguste

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175849593
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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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