Italian Cookbook Roundup

The Silver Spoon Pasta (Silver Spoon Book)   and La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy are the titles of two books packed full of Italian recipes.  Both of these books are being published in English for the first time and both are a compilation of Italian recipes with many contributors, not one author.  While there are many similarities, the books are very different in many ways.

 

• The Silver Spoon Pasta (Silver Spoon Book) was put together by  Phaidon Press, the same team who created The Silver Spoon, a book that has been published and republished since 1950.  The Hard covered book is divided into sections based on pasta types – long pasta (like spaghetti), short pasta(such as farfalle), cut pasta (fettuccine), cut pasta (lasagna) and filled pasta (ravioli), each section having it’s own color coded tab at the top.  The book is also divided among dried and fresh pastas.  There are plenty of pastas I’ve never heard of before, but would confidently prepare now.

The dishes are easy to follow with lots of nice photos so you can see what the finished product will look like.  I like that the recipes are divided by pasta type so that if you have one type of pasta, you can easily flip through a few pages to figure out what you want to do with it.  Most of the recipes have the prep time and cooking times listed making it easy to judge how long it will take to create your meal.  Directions for preparing and making your own basic pasta dough are included and referred to in some of the dishes. I’ve never made my own pasta, and even though the book gives directions, I’m not sure if it’s enough for me to feel that inspired.

There are 360 recipes which range from Carbora to Elbow Macaroni with Pumpkin and Radicchio to Spaghetti with Shrimp and Globe Artichokes. Last night I made Fettuccine with Chicken and Almonds that turned out great.  Not a bit left over it was so delicious.

This would make a great gift for a college student, my husband, any cook.  My Grade A-.  

• La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy – is a workhorse.  There aren’t any glossy pictures – or any photos at all.  The recipes aren’t smashed together but they run one right after another, even starting on the bottom of one page and ending at the top of another.  This book is packed to the gills with recipes. 
  

  A little over fifty years ago, a group of Italians passionate about preserving Italy’s culinary heritage banded together and formed the Accademia Italiana della Cucina. Their primary goal was to collect and document the rich and varied cuisine of Italy’s twenty regions. In 2001 the Academy gathered 2,000 recipes, collected by their delegates over the years, and compiled them in one single volume and published it in Italy to great success. Now, for the first time, LA CUCINA: THE REGIONAL COOKING OF ITALY is being published in the English language.

The book is divided into  antipasto pizza and sauces,soups, pasta polenta and rice, fish,  meat and poultry, vegetables, cheese dishes and desserts.  Further, each section is divided by region.  This book has many recipes that are different by one or a few ingredients based on the region it comes from. There are five or six recipes for Beef Stew alone.  I have to say that I really enjoyed looking at this book, not just because of the recipes, but also because of the history sprinkled throughout. 

This book isn’t totally functional.  Some of these recipes can’t be made because the ingredients are difficult to find.  Really difficult.  Like Horsemeat difficult.  I swear, but they explain that the recipe came about during war.  The horses were killed in a battle, and in order not to waste the horses, they ate them.  Which is cool in that I’m a big believer in not wasting.  I know, it sounds gross, but the book is cool.  There’s also at least one recipe for donkey and another for goat though there aren’t a lot of those recipes.

Quite a few selections are slight variations on one recipe depending on the region it came from. The back of the book has different indexes to help you decide whether you want to pick a recipe based on region or by ingredient.  You can definitely prepare great meals with this book. 

I don’t think this is the college kid gift book, or a book for a newbie.  This book is for someone who enjoys the history of recipes, the small nuances that represent the different regions of Italy.  If my Dad were alive, this would be the book for him.  My sister in law would get a kick out of it too and maybe even my niece the chef. My grade A for fun, B+ for functionality and because you can’t hold it up too long before your arms go numb. 

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