Compiled by Matteo Guidi, with MoCa collective, I. Dedinca, C. Marchese, P.P. Melis, C. Musumeci, C.I. Rapisarda, O. Sangani, M. Timpani, and Mario Trudo. Designed by Alessandro Lanfrancotti and Giorgia Frigerio. Translated by Allegra Baggio Corradi with support from Arina Tiagicheva. Illustrated by Mario Trudu. Includes short essays by Marco Tortoioli Ricci and Massimo Montanari.
Chicago, IL and Fort Wayne, IN, Half Letter Press, November, 2025
Pages: 144
Dimensions: 5.5 in X 8.5 in
Cover: Paper
Binding: perfect bound
Process: Offset
Color: black ink
Edition size: 1649
ISBN: 9-781967-089024
In 2024, Half Letter Press participated in Printed Matter's NY Art Book Fair and we were approached at our table by Allegra Baggio Corradi, the translator of this book. She told us about an Italian book, very similar in spirit to our book Prisoners' Inventions by our late collaborator Angelo. She described Cooking in Maximum Security, compiled by Matteo Guidi, and explained that it had been published in Italian in 2014 and she was helping to look for someone that might want to print an English language version.
Once we saw some of the material in this book, it could not have felt more obvious that we should be the publishers. We had a video meeting with Matteo who chose the designers Alessandro Lafrancotti and Giorgia Frigerio and we set to work. After a series of many exchanges over the course of a year, we are thrilled to present the English edition of this powerful and moving book of writing and drawings. Cooking in Maximum Security is extraordinary on its own terms, but also offers a fascinating point of comparison to those who are mainly familiar with the US prison system. It will undoubtedly make any reader very hungry for Italian food—even recipes cooked under particularly challenging conditions.
From the back cover:
Cooking in Maximum Security was compiled by Matteo Guidi, working with people detained in the high surveillance sections of Italian prisons, through a continuous exchange of letters between 2009 and 2013.
This book explains the methods and strategies prisoners use to cook in their cells with few available resources. Making kitchen tools before one can even begin to gather ingredients is a priority in this cookbook. In addition to identifying the necessary utensils, this book also describes how to construct them. Simple objects acquire a whole new value. A broom handle becomes a rolling pin, shoelaces tie rolled bacon for curing, and the cupboard or stool becomes an oven. Even the heat from an old cathode ray tube television helps dough for pizza and bread to rise in the cold environment of a prison cell.
The recipes themselves, for all kinds of classic Italian pasta dishes, sauces, meat preparations, and pastries, reveal a whole new level of skill and ingenuity when the reader learns how they are made in defiance of the discouraging experience of detention.
To learn more about the project visit: www.cookinginmaximumsecurity.com/
About Matteo Guidi:
Born in Cesena, Italy in 1978. He lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. He is a visual artist trained in cultural anthropology, a discipline that is clearly reflected in his artistic practice. His research generates reflections moving from material culture. Starting from the observation of different social groups or people, he analyzes the way they relate to their everyday objects, proposing new uses and attributing new symbolism. As such, his work is critical and subtle yet poetic. His projects develop interdisciplinarily from photography, drawing, and video to installation. He combines his artistic and anthropological research with his academic profession. He teaches at ISIA in Urbino and IED in Barcelona. He is also a member of the cooperative CoMoDo (Comunicare Moltiplica Doveri).
