"I'm a chef," he said, speaking to me and the woman sitting between us. "My cuisine is known around the world!"

"Really!?" the woman said. "Are you famous for a culinary specialty?"

"Yes," he said. "Rat poison."

"The woman drew back. "You're joking."

"No, it's true. I make the world's best selling rat poison. It's called Bocaraton, 'rat's mouth' or 'mouses's mouth,' like the city in Florida. I never understood why anyone would want to live in a city with such a name. But it's perfect for my specialty, which I sell all over the world - in Dubai, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Boston, South America, wherever there are rats. I have thirty percent of the international rat-poison market."

"What's your secret?" I asked.

"My competitors approach rat poison the wrong way," he said. "They study rats. I study people." Signor Donadon pointed at my plate with his fork. "Rats eat what people eat."

I glanced down at my fegato alla veneziana and suddenly saw my dinner in a different light.

"Venetian rats would be very happy to eat what you have on your plate," he said, "because they're used to eating that kind of food. But German rats would not  be interested at all. They prefer German cuisine - wurstel, Wiener schnitzel. So for Germany I made a rat poison that is forty-five percent pork fat. My French rat poison has butter in it. For America I use vanilla, granola, popcorn, and a little margarine, because Americans eat very little butter. I base my New York rat poison on vegetable oils and essential oils with orange fragrance to remind the rats of hamburgers and orange juice. For Bombay I add curry. For Chile, fish meal.

"Rats are very adaptable. If their hosts go on fad diets, then rats go on the diets, too. I maintain thirty research stations around the world so I can update the tastes and flavours of my poisons in order to make them consistent with the latest trends in human dining."

"What's in your Italian rat poison?" I asked.

"Olive oil, pasta, honey, espresso, green-apple juice, and Nutella. Especially Nutella. I buy tons of it. Rats love it. I told the Nutella company I would be happy to endorse it on televison, and they said, 'Oh, God, no! We beg you. Please tell no one!'"

The woman sitting on the far side of Signor Donadon put both of her hands flat on the table as if to steady herself. "I simply will not listen to a discussion of rats while I'm having my dinner!" she said, and then, as much in the spirit of melodrama as anger, she turned her back.

Signor Donadon continued unperturbed. "Everyone is fascinated by rats. Even people who say they're not. What they really mean to say is, 'Oh, that's disgusting, I can't bear it, tell me more!'"

The couple on my left, I noticed, had stopped talking aout the Fenice and were giving Donadon their full attention.

"But if a rat is hungry," I said, "won't it eat just about anything?"

"Absolutely," said Signor Donadon, "but rats are better fed than ever, because there's more garbage than ever. So they've become ever choosy about what they eat. In the 1950s, people used to throw only half of one percent of their food into the garbage, and rats had to eat whatever they could find. Today seven percent of our food ends up in the garbage, and it's a never-ending banquet for rats. The challenge for me, is to make my rat poison more appetising than garbage. Garbage is the real competition.

From The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt.