Cooking in Maximum Security - Matteo Guidi

Cooking in Maximum Security, compiled by Matteo Guidi, with MoCa collective / Illustrated by Mario Trudu / 144-page paperback, 5.5 x 8.5 inches, published in 2025 by Public Collectors / ISBN 9781967089024

Also see Prisoner's Inventions

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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.

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).