Revealed: Callas's secret passion for recipes she refused to taste

When she lost an incredible 40 kilograms in one year Maria Callas transformed herself from fat and dowdy opera singer into svelte and elegant diva.

The pressure to stay thin was tremendous for the food-loving soprano, whose newly published personal papers show how she tried to comfort herself during her tormented battles with her weight.

Callas began a habit of meticulous recipe collecting, scribbling down instructions for her favourite dishes as she travelled the world.

She would 'steal' recipes from famous cooks in hotels, writing them on scraps of paper and stuffing them into her handbag. But they were for food she herself would never eat. 'She loved food, especially cakes and puddings, but lived mostly on steak and salad,' said Callas expert Bruno Tosi, who is allowing the handwritten recipes to be published for the first time in Italy. 'Writing down these recipes was a vicarious pleasure because she rarely allowed herself to taste any of them.'

Callas's international career began in 1947 when opera singers were expected to be overweight. But at 108kg she felt miserable and regarded herself as ugly and unlovable. When the director Luchino Visconti told her to lose 30kg before he would work with her, she dropped 40kg. She then went on to lose another 8kg.

According to legend, Callas's enormous weight loss came about because she deliberately swallowed a tapeworm. Tosi, president of the International Maria Callas Association, said she did have to have treatment for worms, possibly because of her fondness for raw steak, but she dropped the weight by following a diet based on consuming iodine.

'It was a dangerous treatment because it affected the central nervous system and changed her metabolism, but she turned into a beautiful swan,' said Tosi.

She never ate pasta and favoured meals of rare beef or steak tartare. All the time - and during her love affair with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis - she collected recipes: tomato omelettes, veal l'oriental, besciamel sauce with capers, mustard sauce, golden pound cake, chocolate beignets and a cake she called 'my cake' which was heavy and laden with sugar.

The recipes were sent back to her personal cook, who served them at Callas's dinner parties. While her guests tucked in, Callas ate only a few morsels. She rarely drank wine, but liked champagne because it was less calorific. 'She was like many women, struggling her entire life with her weight,' said Tosi.

Callas died, aged 53, in Paris, still heartbroken at Onassis leaving her to marry Jackie Kennedy. But in Italy, 28 years after her death, they still love her. On Thursday in a ceremony in Venice the Ponte della Fenice bridge was renamed Ponte Maria Callas after 100,000 signatures were gathered by the Maria Callas International Association.

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