So Mauro is ten years old when he starts on the cakes. Each evening, he throws his schoolbag across his bedroom and enters the kitchen. At that time of day he is alone in the house, master of all he surveys. He probes the cupboards, makes an inventory of the fridge, then opens the cookbook and chooses a recipe that corresponds to the ingredients at his disposal, which he places on the table so that he can see them all readily. Next, he reads the recipe and visualizes the process. Soon he is pouring, breaking, weighing, beating, crushing, heating, measuring, decanting, manipulating, kneading, cutting, peeling, cooking, arranging, mixing, mimicking adult gestures. Soon he is making food for his family.

Because, right away, cooking entails other people; it entails the presence of others contained within the cake like the genie in the lamp. Because the preparation of a dish immediately calls for a set table, another guest, language, emotions, and every theatrical element of a meal, from the presentation of the dish to the remarks it provokes—the digestive rumblings of guests with full mouths and wide-open eyes. This is precisely where the pleasure lies for Mauro, who, as he becomes an adolescent, is known among his friends as the chef the way others take on the roles of the looker, the grease monkey, the geek, the brawler, the panty dropper, the athlete, or the joker of the gang—the gang in question being six boys who hang out together for seven years, through middle school and high school, without ever growing apart. I’ve never cooked just for myself—and he hands me a plate of octopus à la plancha.

What amazes me, from this era of patisseries, is the magical power of the cookbook. As if the cake resulted from the recipe, as if it came out of language the way it comes out of the oven when the cooking time is over. So that the more experienced he becomes, the more his vocabulary is enriched, incorporating the words of gastronomy. Following a recipe means matching sensory perceptions to verbs and nouns—and, for example, learning to distinguish what is diced from what is minced, and what is minced from what is chopped; learning to specify the different actions of boiling, broiling, poaching, grilling, sautéing, roasting, baking, reducing; learning to connect the array of colors, textures, and flavors to their infinitely nuanced counterparts in the culinary lexicon. Mauro acquires this language like a foreign tongue through a series of charlottes, babas, floating islands, marble cakes, cheesecakes, lemon meringue pies, bread puddings, macarons, pistachio financiers, Bavarian creams, crème brûlées, petits gâteaux, clafoutis, tiramisus, reines de saba, and other balthazars.