David Downie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David S. Downie (born 1958 in San Francisco) is a multilingual Paris-based American author and journalist who writes most often about culture, food and travel.
A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Downie took a master’s degree in Italian from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he was a University Fellow. After working in the early 1980s as a translator, interpreter and press officer in Milan, he moved to Paris. His writing reflects an abiding interest in French and Italian culture, food and language.
His articles have appeared in about 100 publications, print and online, including The Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Bon Appétit, Gourmet magazine, Gastronomica, The Art of Eating, Australian Financial Review, Departures, Salon.com, Epicurious.com and Concierge.com. He has acted as Paris correspondent, contributing editor or European editor for a number of publications, including Appellation and Art & Antiques. His writing has also appeared in anthologies, among them The Collected Traveler volumes on Paris, Southwest France and Central Italy.
In 1997 Downie’s crime novel La tour de l’immonde, about violence and murder in central Paris and its banlieue, was published in Paris.
His first nonfiction book in English, Enchanted Liguria also appeared in 1997; it was translated the following year in Italy under the title La Liguria incantata. His illustrated book on the contemporary cooking of Rome, Cooking the Roman Way, was listed among the top ten cookbooks of 2002 by The Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle. Cooking the Roman Way is full of anecdotes about the names, hidden meanings and confusions of Italian foods; useful notes explain the difference between farro and spelt and the existence and uses of the quinto quarto "fifth quarter" of butchered animals.
Downie’s latest book is Paris, Paris (2005), which explores the sites of Paris, from the Ile Saint-Louis to Les Halles and the parks of Montsouris and Buttes Chaumont. Paris, Paris also features insights on Georges Pompidou, François Mitterrand and Coco Chanel.
European pilgrimage routes are a newer field of interest for Downie. In 2006, together with his wife, photographer Alison Harris, he walked 1,100 kilometers across France following sections of the Way of Saint James; a website documents this journey already exists,[1] and Downie is now writing a book about it, due in winter 2007.
[edit] Works
- 1995: Un’altra Parigi, nove passeggiate insolite nella Ville Lumière (with Ulderico Munzi)
- 1995: The Irreverent Guide to Amsterdam
- 1997: Enchanted Liguria: A Celebration of the Culture, Lifestyle and Food of the Italian Riviera (Rizzoli International)
- Italian translation, 1998: La Liguria incantata: Cultura, stile di vita, cucina della Riviera ligure. Translated by Camilla Orlando (SAGEP, Genoa. ISBN 978-88-7058-699-2)
- 1997: La tour de l’immonde
- 2002: Cooking the Roman Way: Authentic recipes from the home cooks and trattorias of Rome (HarperCollins). Photography by Alison Harris
- 2005: Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light (Transatlantic Press)
