Maureen Fant, a native of New York City is an internationally recognized cookbook author, food writer, translator, and published classicist. Her Sauces & Shapes: Pasta the Italian Way won an International Association of Culinary Professionals award and was a James Beard Foundation award finalist. Encyclopedia of Pasta, which she translated, won a James Beard for research. Cognoscenti still regard Dictionary of Italian Cuisine, which she coauthored in 1994, as the authoritative book on the subject. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times,The Times of London, Gourmet,and Saveur, among others. She wrote the Rome volume in Williams-Sonoma’s Foods of the World series. On the classical side, she is coauthor of the now-classic source book Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, whose fourth revised edition was published in 2016.

Maureen lives in Rome, across from the Colosseum, and loves to explain the food of Italy to visitors through classes on the food of ancient Rome, market-based private cooking classes, and the meals and food experiences of Elifant Archaeo-Culinary Tours, the company she cofounded in 2014. Known for her empathetic and humorous style, she also never loses sight of the food’s cultural context.

Language spoken: English, Italian

Photo credit : ARR