Pluralistic: Cooking in Maximum Security (24 Nov 2025)


Today's links


The cover of Half Letter Press's edition of 'Cooking in Maximum Security,' featuring a line-art drawing of a moka coffee pot.

Cooking in Maximum Security (permalink)

Cooking in Maximum Security is a slim volume of prisoners' recipes and improvised cooking equipment, a testament to the ingenuity of a network of prisoners in Italy's maximum security prisons:

https://halfletterpress.com/cooking-in-maximum-security/

Cooking in Maximum Security has a new English translation from Half Letter Press, who also publish the classic Prisoners' Inventions, which is one of my favorite books of all time, a collection of keenly observed, beautifully drawn material improvisations from America's prisons:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/09/king-rat/#mother-of-invention

Prison cookbooks are a genre unto themselves, with "underground" classics like Jailhouse Cookbook:

http://jailhousecookbook.com/

And slick coffee-table books like Prison Ramen:

https://www.eater.com/23900359/gastropod-instant-ramen-prison-ramen-recipes-stories-maruchan-cup-noodle

But Cooking in Maximum Security drills down much deeper on the method than those other books, elevating the makerish improvisation of the chefs whose work it reproduces. They explain how to make an oven out of a wooden stool lined with cigarette foil and draped with heavy blankets, into which a small gas burner is introduced:

https://www.cookinginmaximumsecurity.com/tools/

Or how to turn a toothbrush handle and the razor blade from a pencil-sharpener into an all-purpose paring knife:

https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-l4sjfhdy/images/stencil/2048×2048/products/771/3042/CookinginMax4__83959.1762438870.jpg?c=2

These field-expedient gadget improvisations are incredibly satisfying. They have the vibe of a good episode of Scrapheap Challenge, or the high-stakes duct-tape ingenuity of Apollo 13. And while these recipes and build notes were collected in the 2010s, the pencil/charcoal illustrations have a classic 1970s feel, like the illustrations out of the Moosewood Cookbook or The Joy of Sex. If you love the kind of clever repurposings that filled the pages of Make magazine, you'll love this.

Plus, the food sounds incredible. Mouth-watering. Fresh bread whose dough was warmed and risen by setting it atop the heat-radiating surface of a CRT television!

One thing that sets Cooking in Maximum Security apart from other prison cookbooks is the unique character of Italian maximum security prisons, in which visitors are allowed to bring a fairly large variety of goods to inmates, and where the commissary is stocked with an incredible variety of basic ingredients, including things like goat and beef livers (the book reproduces an entire commissary menu, with prices, as an appendix). Prisoners have access to beer and wine, and find endless uses for old beer cans. The book also drops in casual clues about life in an Italian prison, for example, when it suggests getting your wooden stirrer by taking down a crucifix and using that.

Cooking in Maximum Security arose out of a project called "MoCa" (a play on the essential moka coffee maker that is the most versatile and widely used tool in this book). Prisoners met with, and corresponded with, outside helpers who put together the entire volume. One collaborator, Mario, died shortly after sending a long letter (reproduced in an appendix) from solitary confinement, and this letter, along with other notes interspersed through the recipes, give a brilliant anthropological account of life in Italian maximum security prisons.

The MoCa project isn't done – they've embarked on "Phase II," which will collect recipes from Spanish prisoners.

It's a remarkable book, and an essential companion to Prisoner's Inventions.

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Sony rootkit hurts artists https://web.archive.org/web/20051125121608/http://businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/tc20051122_343542.htm

#20yrsago Anti-game lawyer loses right to practice law in Alabama https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2005/11/5613-2/

#20yrsago Tech business niches begging to be filled https://techcrunch.com/2005/11/21/companies-id-like-to-profile-but-dont-exist/

#20yrsago Giving EU air-passenger data to US DHS is illegal https://www.rte.ie/news/2005/1122/70024-eu/

#15yrsago What John Pistole means when he talks about “enhanced” TSA checkpoints https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wrDzMD_BC8

#15yrsago Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock explained in 32 seconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJKHFPBwDRA

#15yrsago TSA looks at Adam Savage’s junk, misses his two 12″ razor blades https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3yaqq9Jjb4

#10yrsago What’s inside a “Hello Barbie” surveillance toy? https://www.somersetrecon.com/blog/2015/11/20/hello-barbie-security-part-1-teardown

#10yrsago J Edgar Hoover loved Efrem Zimbalist’s “FBI” https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/nov/23/efrem-zimbalist-fbi-file/

#10yrsago Blankets: New edition of Craig Thompson’s graphic masterpiece https://memex.craphound.com/2015/11/23/blankets-new-edition-of-craig-thompsons-graphic-masterpiece/

#10yrsago Randall Munroe does a Q&A with stick-figure comics https://time.com/4116921/randall-munroe-draws-his-own-conclusions/

#10yrsago On the grotesque obsession with accomplished women’s fertility https://harpers.org/archive/2015/10/the-mother-of-all-questions/?single=1

#10yrsago How browser extensions steal logins & browsing habits; conduct corporate espionage https://labs.detectify.com/security-guidance/chrome-extensions-google-is-tracking-you/

#10yrsago Activist tricked into 6-year relationship with undercover cop tells her story https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/20/lisa-jones-girlfriend-of-undercover-police-office-mark-kennedy-interview

#5yrsago An Especially Cursed House https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/22/especially-cursed/#mcmansion-hell

#5yrsago Guatemala's guillotines https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#guillotines

#5yrsago The power of procurements https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#procurements

#5yrsago Labor and large firms https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#monopsony

#5yrsago A textbook grift https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#racket

#5yrsago Australian predictive policing tool for kids https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#phrenology

#5yrsago Opsec and personal security https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#asl

#1yrago Reverse engineers bust sleazy gig work platform https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/23/hack-the-class-war/#robo-boss

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE AND SUBMITTED.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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