"Gastronomy of Italy" continues to grace the shelves of home cooks, professional chefs and armchair travellers. A constant seller, the original version of this classic text won the prestigous Duchessa Maria Luigia di Parma prize. This new edition has been totally updated, reorganised and expanded taking into account the culinary changes of the last decade, the move towards healthier eating and today's demand for a fully comprehensive reference for the kitchen. It includes a detailed introduction to the origins and history of Italian cuisine, a cook's tour of the 16 regions of Italy and their specialities, a 200-recipe section, a full A-Z reference guide to Italian Food, an explanation of terms and techniques as well as a survey of Italian wines. Superbly illustrated with historical paintings, frescoes, prints and special food photography, Anna Del Conte's "Gastronomy of Italy" is an essential companion, which will remain a source of reference for life.

Spaghetti with meatballs, fettuccine alfredo, margherita pizzas, ricotta and parmesan cheeses—we have Italy to thank for some of our favorite comfort foods. Home to a dazzling array of wines, cheese, breads, vegetables, and salamis, Italy has become a mecca for foodies who flock to its pizzerias, gelateries, and family-style and Michelin-starred restaurants. Taking readers across the country’s regions and beyond in the first book in Reaktion’s new Foods and Nations series, Al Dente explores our obsession with Italian food and how the country’s cuisine became what it is today. Fabio Parasecoli discovers that for centuries, southern Mediterranean countries such as Italy fought against food scarcity, wars, invasions, and an unfavorable agricultural environment. Lacking in meat and dairy, Italy developed foodways that depended on grains, legumes, and vegetables until a stronger economy in the late 1950s allowed the majority of Italians to afford a more diverse diet. Parasecoli elucidates how the last half century has seen new packaging, conservation techniques, industrial mass production, and more sophisticated systems of transportation and distribution, bringing about profound changes in how the country’s population thought about food. He also reveals that much of Italy’s culinary reputation hinged on the world’s discovery of it as a healthy eating model, which has led to the prevalence of high-end Italian restaurants in major cities around the globe. Including historical recipes for delicious Italian dishes to enjoy alongside a glass of crisp Chianti, Al Dente is a fascinating survey of this country’s cuisine that sheds new light on why we should always leave the gun and take the cannoli.

The ultimate book on every aspect of Italian food—inspiring, comprehensive, colorful, extensive, joyful, and downright encyclopedic.

Italians love to talk about food. The aroma of a simmering ragú, the bouquet of a local wine, the remembrance of a past meal: Italians discuss these details as naturally as we talk about politics or sports, and often with the same flared tempers. In Why Italians Love to Talk About Food, Elena Kostioukovitch explores the phenomenon that first struck her as a newcomer to Italy: the Italian "culinary code," or way of talking about food. Along the way, she captures the fierce local pride that gives Italian cuisine its remarkable diversity. To come to know Italian food is to discover the differences of taste, language, and attitude that separate a Sicilian from a Piedmontese or a Venetian from a Sardinian. Try tasting Piedmontese bagna cauda, then a Lombard cassoela, then lamb ala Romana: each is part of a unique culinary tradition. In this learned, charming, and entertaining narrative, Kostioukovitch takes us on a journey through one of the world's richest and most adored food cultures. Organized according to region and colorfully designed with illustrations, maps, menus, and glossaries, Why Italians Love to Talk About Food will allow any reader to become as versed in the ways of Italian cooking as the most seasoned of chefs. Food lovers, history buffs, and gourmands alike will savor this exceptional celebration of Italy's culinary gifts.

Italy, the country with a hundred cities and a thousand bell towers, is also the country with a hundred cuisines and a thousand recipes. Its great variety of culinary practices reflects a history long dominated by regionalism and political division, and has led to the common conception of Italian food as a mosaic of regional customs rather than a single tradition. Nonetheless, this magnificent new book demonstrates the development of a distinctive, unified culinary tradition throughout the Italian peninsula. Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari uncover a network of culinary customs, food lore, and cooking practices, dating back as far as the Middle Ages, that are identifiably Italian: o Italians used forks 300 years before other Europeans, possibly because they were needed to handle pasta, which is slippery and dangerously hot. o Italians invented the practice of chilling drinks and may have invented ice cream. o Italian culinary practice influenced the rest of Europe to place more emphasis on vegetables and less on meat. o Salad was a distinctive aspect of the Italian meal as early as the sixteenth century. The authors focus on culinary developments in the late medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras, aided by a wealth of cookbooks produced throughout the early modern period. They show how Italy's culinary identities emerged over the course of the centuries through an exchange of information and techniques among geographical regions and social classes. Though temporally, spatially, and socially diverse, these cuisines refer to a common experience that can be described as Italian. Thematically organized around key issues in culinary history and beautifully illustrated, Italian Cuisine is a rich history of the ingredients, dishes, techniques, and social customs behind the Italian food we know and love today.

‘Roden’s great gift is to conjure up not just a cuisine but the culture from which it springs’ Nigella Lawson A fully illustrated updated edition of Claudia Roden's masterpiece cookbook including over 300 delicious recipes and gorgeous full colour photography of local Italian scenery. The Food of Italy was written after Claudia Roden spent a year in Italy researching the subject. Regional recipes, country cooking, the bravura of grand dishes; pasta, seafood, rice dishes and authentic Italian desserts; Claudia Roden's encyclopedic knowledge of her subject infuses a rich and stunning book. The Food of Italy was first published in 1989. But the recipes are fresh yet timeless. For this edition Claudia has updated over 30% of the recipes to fit modern tastes, with new inclusions like farro salad and burrata. The book is structured by region. So you get the glorious tomato and aubergine dishes of Sicily; the classically Roman dishes like salty meat and fried vegetables, and rich Tuscan stews and soups. Featuring an incredible repertoire, The Food of Italy is completely approachable for home cooks.

Recipes from the kitchens and restaurants of Italy's new culinary masters, who combine an innate sixth sense for quintessentially Italian flavor with a contemporary approach, defining an exciting new gastronomy. Everybody loves Italian food. It is among the most talked about, written about, and globally popular. But as travelers have sought out culinary experiences in off-the-beaten-path destinations elsewhere in the world, in Italy even consummate foodies eat the same postcard versions of traditional dishes, occasionally making forays into a handful of fine-dining favorites. Yet by far the country's most interesting cuisine is to be found outside of well-trodden establishments, and it's as varied and full of personality as it is delicious. This generation of chefs has come a long way from their nonna's kitchen: they approach tradition with a respectful yet emancipated perspective; they rethink the formats of the Italian restaurant; they are rediscovering foraging and farming; they introduce serious cocktail programs. This book covers thirty-two chefs and restaurateurs who are reinterpreting the "greatest hits" of Italian dining: from trattorias to fine dining, from aperitivo to pizzerias. Laura Lazzaroni takes her readers on a visual north-to-south tour of this new cucina italiana, stopping at restaurants, inns, farms, and pop-ups all across the country, showing in stories and recipes the multitude of approaches, influences, and ingredients that compose this movement, which is paving the way for the country's gastronomic rebirth.

Based on a highly successful series in the "London Sunday Times" magazine, this is an illustrated cookbook with 300 superb recipes that also serves as a colorful travel guide to all of Italy's regions. Illustrated.

Italy has produced one of the world’s greatest and most beloved cuisines, filled with vibrant flavors and soul-satisfying dishes. Unfortunately, no cuisine has been more misinterpreted than Italy’s. Now, restaurateur Tony May, owner of New York City’s San Domenico restaurant, gives readers a comprehensive cookbook that celebrates Italy’s authentic gastronomic pleasures in a way that only an Italian, devoted to the cuisine of his native country, could imagine. Originally written for culinary professionals, Tony May’s Italian Cuisine has now been adapted for the home cook. May takes the reader into the kitchens of centuries of Italian cooks to show the real panorama of Italian food in all its glory. In chapters devoted to breads, antipasti, sauces, meats, vegetables, soups, pasta, fish, poultry, cheeses, and desserts, never-before published recipes mix with time-honored classics to show readers the depth and breadth of true Italian cuisine. Here are just a few examples of the bounty just inside the covers of Italian Cuisine: Chisolini---flaky fried dough served with antipasti Zucchini blossom soup Crisp fried polenta with borlotti beans and cabbage Pappardelle with wild hare sauce Christmas capon stuffed with walnuts Ligurian seafood caponata Tortelli de Carnevale---sweet, puffy fried beignets In addition to the wonderful recipes and wealth of Italian culinary knowledge, Italian Cuisine includes a comprehensive Italian to English glossary of food terms that provides a cook’s quick reference to all things authentically Italian. Throughout, May’s inimitable native Italian voice guides the reader’s hands in a book destined to become a standard volume on the cookbook shelf. Someone once said that Italians have raised living to an art form; Tony May’s Italian Cuisine is certainly evidence of that.

*As featured in a BBC documentary* Anna Del Conte is the doyenne of Italian cookery, beloved by food writers including Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith. Italian Kitchen is a classic Italian cookbook and essential for every home cook. It brings together over 100 mouth-watering recipes for gleaming antipasti, earthy risottos, gutsy pasta sauces and sumptuous dolci into a bible of classic Italian cooking. Effortlessly stylish yet unfussy, they are the essence of any self-respecting Italian kitchen and provide the fundamentals of Italian cooking.