I was born in Zaire, me and my brother. Zaire is now Democratic Republic of the Congo. That little strip of Zaire that goes out to the sea is next to Angola and Congo-Brazzaville. My father’s cook was Toto, and he was from Angola. So, some of the dishes we had in my family—we are half-French, half-Italian—come from those cuisines and also from Africa… with Portuguese influence. Something that nowadays I cannot eat anymore is la lingua, ‘the tongue’. It’s cow tongue that they boil until softened and then cut really thin, thin, thin, thin, thin! And they layer it with this sauce we call bagnetto; it’s parsley and garlic chopped fine in oil and vinegar. A layer of tongue, a layer of sauce, a layer of tongue, a layer of sauce and so on. I remember eating it from two-years-old on. I was crazy about it… the way it was layered. As a designer, I remember the color; part of my brain says it’s pink, but it’s not. It has this membrane around it, and that’s distinct. After I was eight or nine, my taste changed completely. I just went into disgust when I realized… it’s a tongue!