Food Of Italy

So great to have this book! I had missed it earlier but now I’m into it in a BIG way. Many thanks for sending it and with such speed. Jill

This is a awesome Italian cookbook. It’s from different regions all over Italy and tells a small story about the culture and traditional foods for those areas and then shares recipes. Amazing book and worth every penny!

This edition is basically a reorganized version of the prior Knopf 1990 edition of "The Good Food of Italy, Region by Region" which was printed in paperback by Arrow as "The Food of Italy".The material, especially the recipes, is virtually the same.Some chapters have been reorganized as to where they are located in the book and the writing very slightly edited.For example,the sections such as Basics are now at the beginning of the book instead of the end.The other editions include photograph sections.Perhaps as another reader suggests this is a budget version.I like Roden's cookbooks so which ever version you buy will proove useful but don't get fooled into thinking this is a completely revised edition especially if you do enjoy photographs in your cookbooks.

As usuel all of Claudia Roden's books are outstanding interestîng complète with excellent recipes included

Claudia Roden is one of the distaff aristocracy of Mediterranean culinary journalism with Elizabeth David and Paula Wolfert. This book, `The Food of Italy Region by Region' is an adaptation of a series of newspaper articles written for the Sunday Times of London. Each of the 19 larger regions has a chapter devoted to the traditional dishes and wines of the region. The cuisine of two very small regions, Valle D'Aosta and Molise are grouped together larger neighbors, Piedmont and Abruzzi respectively. Each chapter begins with an essay on the food of that region followed by several recipes. Emilia-Romagna, for example gets 21 example recipes.Each essay includes a section on the wines of the region. This was one of the most interesting aspects of the work to someone who knows very little of wines. Before reading this, I was under the impression that Italian vintage wine culture was hundreds of years old. Wine was certainly produced in Italy since before the Roman Empire, yet up to World War II, it was largely the production of everyday wine with few quality exports. Only in the last 50 years has Italy developed the same kind of quality labels to rival those of France. I must say they have done a very good job of it.I was also surprised by the relatively recent awareness of regional cuisine in Italy, as it never really codified its culinary traditions in the same way France did so well. I am delighted, however that there is a book, which ties together all the material in my five (5) foot shelf of books on regional Italian cuisine. It is especially interesting to see the split in Italian cuisine below Rome into the very Mediterranean cooking of Campania, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily versus the more European cooking of, for example, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Piedmont, and Friuli. In the north, for example, you have soft pastas and gnocchi with family resemblances to Germanic dumplings. In the south, for example, you have abundant olive oil and dried tomatoes linked closely to the cuisines of Greece and North Africa.The author presents close to 300 recipes by region, but also gives a list of recipes by these food types:AppetizersStuffed VegetablesFried FoodsCheese and EggsSeafood AntipastiPizzas, Breads, and PiesSoupsPastaDumplingsRisottosPolentasFish and ShellfishMeat, Poultry, and GameSide Dishes, Salads, and VegetablesDessertsThis is excellent Sunday Supplement journalism and very good culinary reporting. I found very few differences of opinion between the author and Mario Batali, my gold standard for Italian regional cuisine. In the case of any disagreements and any other evidence, I would give Mario the nod simply because he is a professional chef in addition to being an interpreter of Italian cuisine and the author is not a professional chef. That means that in spite of how expert Ms. Roden's reporting may be, she has not prepared this food in the restaurant environments on which she reports.One disagreement I detected is in pasta making technique. Ms. Roden cites the `well' or `volcano' method for incorporating liquid into flour to make pasta which Mario demonstrates often. Ms. Roden deviates from this practice by saying that the operation may be easier if done in a bowl instead of on a flat surface, yet, there is an obviously good reason for doing it on a flat surface. It allows one to use `just enough' of the flour for the liquid, and no more, depending on the humidity of the air and the nature of the flour. I suspect Mario's doctrine is closer to how Noni actually does it in Parma.Another disagreement is in the `lipid of choice' where a location may have both olive oil and rape seed oil or other neutral oil available. Mario always uses extra virgin olive oil and claims that where olive oil was available, it was always used in preference to other oils. I am willing to give Ms. Roden the benefit of the doubt here, as I suspect that rape seed oil was probably less expensive than olive oil when the rape seed was produced locally.A third disagreement is in the use of canned versus whole tomatoes in cooking. Mario always uses canned tomatoes for sauces while Ms. Roden specifies fresh whole tomatoes in several of her recipes. I have a hunch that Noni in Campania used both, depending on whether tomatoes were in season or not, especially since Noni was doing the canning anyway.The most exciting conclusion I draw from this book is the refutation of John Thorne's theory that the greatness of Italian cuisine stems from the emulation, in poverty of the glories of the cuisine of the Roman Empire. Roden specifically states that except for a brief period in the Renaissance and in very recent scholarship, there is little Italian reference to the cuisine of the empire. Rather, it is much more likely that the huge diversity in Italian cuisine comes from the interaction of a fabulous variety of produce, greatly enriched by new world products like tomatoes, corn, and chilis, with the cultural overlays from Islam, Spain, Norman Europe, France, and Austria-Hungary. The most dismal message I get is the abandonment of traditional rural agriculture; similar to a trend reported in rural France.This is not your typical Time-Life or Williams-Sonoma glossy photo treatment. This is the read deal with hundreds of relatively easy recipes based on very accessible ingredients using easy techniques, all for a very reasonable price. Unfortunately, Ms. Roden did not have the answer to why Thursday is gnocchi day in Rome.

Excellent service, prompt delivery, excellent conditionas described, packaged well.Would use again.

Not exactly Michelin Star cooking but interesting and the real, original ways to cook recipes. Enough images to be satisfying and good descriptions of the gastronomy of Italy

Es más que un libro de cocina, es un cuaderno de viaje.

I just wanted it for my own information. I'd use it for background but I have better books for recipes.

Completísimo libro de cocina italiana. Muy recomendable, en inglés, pero con la ventaja de incluir también el nombre en italiano

This is a wonderful book which I picked up on Amazon cheaply (the original brilliant Sunday Times mag series of the 80s(?) with even more great photos I kept in cuttings for years).. Claudia Rosen went all over Italy responding to the different regions with her enthusiasm, curiosity and search for authenticity. The research prompted working recipes full of love and knowledge and taste. For example: 'chicken with peppers', she tags as an old Roman recipe, taking you back centuries. Recipe has simple ingredients, is easy and very delicious. This book is THE star on my shelf of Italian cookbooks. PUblishers should re-issue.