Sooshi Mango add humour and camp to some serious Italian cooking, plus win copies of their new cookbook!

By creammagazine, November 4, 2025

Being of Sicilian Italian origin, I know firsthand how serious about food Italian mothers are. When an Italian kid moves out of home and calls his mamma on the phone, the first thing she asks isn’t ‘How’s work?’ or ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ but instead, ‘Are you having enough to eat?’ At the dinner table, the question becomes less of a query and more of a command, so it’s no surprise that comedy trio Sooshi Mango have gone and called their new cookbook ‘EAT!’

Its full title being ‘EAT! Mamma Knows Best’, this cookbook is a warm-hearted celebration of Italian-Australian family cooking, as told through the lens of the three guys, who are all of Italian-Australian heritage themselves.

The guys (girls when in drag) have a simple premise for the book and that is that “everyone knows Italians cook from memory!”. Hence they have sat down with their mammas to coax from them the recipes they grew up with, and are sharing the secret dishes of their childhoods with readers.

The book is organised much like a proper Italian famiglia feast. It runs through the courses of a big family meal: from antipasti (starters), to pasta/first courses, to secondi (main dishes), to contorni/sides, through to dolci (desserts) and bevande (drinks).

More than 40 recipes have been selected from the mammas – whose names are Giuseppina, Carmela, and Angela, and the cooking from this trio pretty much represents the authentic family-kitchen style of Italian cooking rather than fine-dining chef finesse.

Signature dishes include Carmela’s cotoletta (although this could never be as good as my mamma’s cotolette I feel compelled to say), Giuseppina’s chicken brodo (soup), and Angela’s pasta al forno (pasta cooked in the oven).

The fun thing is that these are not just recipes, and the book also includes family album photos, and some general advice on food and life.

If you’ve enjoyed cackling over Sooshi Mango’s skits on TikTok and YouTube, you’ll very much appreciate this camp but beautifully bound cookbook that ought to be up there with Nonna’s secret recipes brought to Australia by boat circa 1954.

Antonino Tati

EAT! Mamma Knows Best, an Italian cookbook by Sooshi Mango, is out through Murdoch Books, RRP $39.99, available from good bookstores.

COMPETITION!

Cream has 10 copies of EAT! Mamma Knows Best to give away to lucky readers. To go into the draw to win a copy, simply email your name, best postal address, and the Subject heading ‘Sooshi’ to cream@pobox.com by 5pm AWST, Tuesday 11th November, 2025. Best of luck! Or as we say in Italian, In bocca al lupo!