Book picks similar to
Eating Up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa by Matthew Fort
travel
non-fiction
food
cookery
The Silver Spoon
Clelia D'Onofrio - 1950
Originally published in 1950, it became an instant classic. Considered to be essential in every household, it is still one of the most popular wedding presents today. The Silver Spoon was conceived and published by Domus, the design and architectural magazine famously directed by Giò Ponti from the 1920's to the 1970's. A group of cooking experts was commissioned to collect hundreds of traditional recipes from the different Italian regions and make them available for the first time to a wider audience. In the process, they updated ingredients, quantities and methods to suit contemporary tastes and customs, at the same time preserving the memory of ancient recipes for future generations. They also included modern recipes from some of the most famous Italian chefs, resulting in a style of cooking that appeals to the gourmet as well as the occasional cook A comprehensive and lively book, its simple and user-friendly format makes it both accessible and a pleasure to read. It provides an introduction to every course, and an explanation of the main type of ingredients. Never translated before, The Silver Spoon has now been adapted to an international market, with every recipe checked for suitability, measurements converted and methods rewritten to accommodate cultural differences, yet maintaining the authenticity of real Italian cooking. The new layout emphasizes its contemporary appeal and the colour coding of each section simplifies the process of cross-referencing ingredients and methods. A section with original menus from the 15 most famous Italian chefs of the last 50 years has been expanded to include original menus from Italian celebrity chefs working outside Italy. This is a substantial and prestigious cookbook that will share the bookshelves with other titles such as The Joy of Cooking and Larousse Gastronomique, another classic of national cuisine. With over 2,000 recipes illustrated with specially commissioned artwork and photography, the book is destined to become a classic in the Italian cooking booklist for the international market.
The Language of Baklava: A Memoir
Diana Abu-Jaber - 2005
Diana Abu-Jaber weaves the story of her life in upstate New York and in Jordan around vividly remembered meals: everything from Lake Ontario shish kabob cookouts with her Arab-American cousins to goat stew feasts under a Bedouin tent in the desert. These sensuously evoked meals, in turn, illuminate the two cultures of Diana's childhood—American and Jordanian—and the richness and difficulty of straddling both. They also bring her wonderfully eccentric family to life, most memorably her imperious American grandmother and her impractical, hotheaded, displaced immigrant father, who, like many an immigrant before him, cooked to remember the place he came from and to pass that connection on to his children.As she does in her fiction, Diana draws us in with her exquisite insight and compassion, and with her amazing talent for describing food and the myriad pleasures and adventures associated with cooking and eating. Each chapter contains mouthwatering recipes for many of the dishes described, from her Middle Eastern grandmother's Mad Genius Knaffea to her American grandmother's Easy Roast Beef, to her aunt Aya's Poetic Baklava. The Language of Baklava gives us the chance not only to grow up alongside Diana, but also to share meals with her every step of the way—unforgettable feasts that teach her, and us, as much about identity, love, and family as they do about food.
Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavors and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City
Katie Parla - 2016
Each is a mirror of its city’s culture, history, and geography. But cucina romana is the country’s greatest standout. Tasting Rome provides a complete picture of a place that many love, but few know completely. In sharing Rome’s celebrated dishes, street food innovations, and forgotten recipes, journalist Katie Parla and photographer Kristina Gill capture its unique character and reveal its truly evolved food culture—a culmination of 2000 years of history. Their recipes acknowledge the foundations of Roman cuisine and demonstrate how it has transitioned to the variations found today. You’ll delight in the expected classics (cacio e pepe, pollo alla romana, fiore di zucca); the fascinating but largely undocumented Sephardic Jewish cuisine (hraimi con couscous, brodo di pesce, pizzarelle); the authentic and tasty offal (guanciale, simmenthal di coda, insalata di nervitti); and so much more. Studded with narrative features that capture the city’s history and gorgeous photography that highlights both the food and its hidden city, you’ll feel immediately inspired to start tasting Rome in your own kitchen.
Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking
Bill Buford - 2020
Baffled by the language, but convinced that he can master the art of French cooking--or at least get to the bottom of why it is so revered-- he begins what becomes a five-year odyssey by shadowing the esteemed French chef Michel Richard, in Washington, D.C. But when Buford (quickly) realizes that a stage in France is necessary, he goes--this time with his wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow--to Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France. Studying at L'Institut Bocuse, cooking at the storied, Michelin-starred La Mère Brazier, enduring the endless hours and exacting rigeur of the kitchen, Buford becomes a man obsessed--with proving himself on the line, proving that he is worthy of the gastronomic secrets he's learning, proving that French cooking actually derives from (mon dieu!) the Italian.
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
Julie Powell - 2005
She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crépes, she realizes there’s more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia’s stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver. And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life’s ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.
The Pleasures of Cooking for One
Judith Jones - 2009
It’s a fulfilling and immensely economical process, one perfectly suited for our times—although, as Jones points out, cooking for one also means we can occasionally indulge ourselves in a favorite treat.Throughout, Jones is both our instructor and our mentor, suggesting basic recipes—such as tomato sauce, preserved lemons, pesto, and homemade stock—that all cooks should have on hand; teaching us how to improvise using an ingenious strategy of building meals through the week; and supplying us with a lifetime’s worth of tips and shortcuts. From Child’s advice for buying fresh meat to Beard’s challenge to beginning crêpe-makers and Lidia Bastianich’s tips for cooking perfectly sauced pasta, Jones’s book presents a wealth of acquired knowledge from our finest cooks.The Pleasures of Cooking for One is a vibrant, wise celebration of food and enjoying our own company from one of our most treasured cooking experts.
The World on a Plate: 40 Cuisines, 100 Recipes, and the Stories Behind Them
Mina Holland - 2014
What’s the origin of kimchi in Korea? Why do we associate Argentina with steak? Why do people in Marseille eat bouillabaisse? What spices make a dish taste North African versus North Indian? What is the story behind the curries of India? And how do you know whether to drink a wine from Bourdeaux or one from Burgundy?Bubbling over with anecdotes, trivia, and lore—from the role of a priest in the genesis of Camembert to the Mayan origins of the word chocolate—The World on a Plate serves up a mélange of recipes, history, and culinary wisdom to be savored by food lovers and armchair travelers alike.
The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran
Jennifer Klinec - 2014
It couldn’t be, therefore, that their Iranian son could feel desire for someone six years his senior, someone who didn’t come to him pure and untouched. I was an amusing visitor from another world and soon enough I should return to it, fading quietly into an anecdote …"In her thirties, Jennifer Klinec abandons a corporate job to launch a cooking school from her London flat. Raised in Canada to Hungarian-Croatian parents, she has already travelled to countries most people are fearful of, in search of ancient recipes. Her quest leads her to Iran where, hair discreetly covered and eyes modest, she is introduced to a local woman who will teach her the secrets of the Persian kitchen.Vahid is suspicious of the strange foreigner who turns up in his mother’s kitchen; he is unused to seeing an independent woman. But a compelling attraction pulls them together and then pits them against harsh Iranian laws and customs. Getting under the skin of one of the most complex and fascinating nations on earth, The Temporary Bride is a soaring story of being loved, being fed, and the struggle to belong.
The Hills of Tuscany
Ferenc Máté - 1998
Steeped in that mesmerizing landscape and full of unforgettable characters, "The Hills of Tuscany" is a celebration of life, an affirmation of traditions, friendship, and neighborly ties.
What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets
Peter Menzel - 2006
Featuring a Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater, and more, these compulsively readable personal stories also include demographic particulars, including age, activity level, height, and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan, and others discuss the implications of our modern diets for our health and for the planet. This compelling blend of photography and investigative reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.
Eating for Pregnancy: The Essential Nutrition Guide and Cookbook for Today's Mothers-to-Be
Catherine Cheremeteff Jones - 2003
Yet as a mother-to-be, you're likely juggling so much that you simply don't have the time-or energy!-to ensure that you're always eating right. That's where this fully updated edition of the pregnancy classic comes in, making it easy to fulfill the needs of you and your baby. Eating for Pregnancy will provide you with all you need to know about nutrition before, during, and after pregnancy.Here are 150 nutrient-rich recipes, more than 30 new to this edition, designed with you and your family in mind. Each highlights "What's in this for baby and me?" and provides handy nutritional breakdowns and meal-planning advice. You'll also find:Tips to help you minimize unnecessary weight gain and keep your nutrient intake highFresh, fast, family-friendly recipes with realistic menu plansThe most up-to-date information on supplements, sources, environmental concerns, and high-risk pregnanciesAn expanded vegetarian section-now with vegan recipesHelpful information for diabetics, including ADA exchanges, recipe tips, and dining-out strategiesA unique Nine-Months-Later section, covering breastfeeding, postpartum depression, and weight loss after pregnancy-with illustrated exercises
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods
Sandor Ellix Katz - 2001
Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation."Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me," writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. "I invite you to join me along this effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food production."The flavors of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes-some familiar, others exotic-that are easy to make at home.The book covers vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and sour pickles; bean ferments including miso, tempeh, dosas, and idli; dairy ferments including yogurt, kefir, and basic cheesemaking (as well as vegan alternatives); sourdough bread-making; other grain fermentations from Cherokee, African, Japanese, and Russian traditions; extremely simple wine- and beer-making (as well as cider-, mead-, and champagne-making) techniques; and vinegar-making. With nearly 100 recipes, this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging fermentation cookbook ever published.
Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo
Tim Parks - 2013
Now, in his first Italian travelogue in a decade, he delivers a charming and funny portrait of Italian ways by riding its trains from Verona to Milan, Rome to Palermo, and right down to the heel of Italy.Parks begins as any traveler might: "A train is a train is a train, isn’t it?" But soon he turns his novelist’s eye to the details, and as he journeys through majestic Milano Centrale station or on the newest high-speed rail line, he delivers a uniquely insightful portrait of Italy. Through memorable encounters with ordinary Italians—conductors and ticket collectors, priests and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants—Parks captures what makes Italian life distinctive: an obsession with speed but an acceptance of slower, older ways; a blind eye toward brutal architecture amid grand monuments; and an undying love of a good argument and the perfect cappuccino.Italian Ways also explores how trains helped build Italy and how their development reflects Italians’ sense of themselves from Garibaldi to Mussolini to Berlusconi and beyond. Most of all, Italian Ways is an entertaining attempt to capture the essence of modern Italy. As Parks writes, "To see the country by train is to consider the crux of the essential Italian dilemma: Is Italy part of the modern world, or not?"
Girl in the Kitchen: How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats Drinks
Stephanie Izard - 2011
Fan favorite and the first and only woman to win on TV's Top Chef, she's also the chef and owner of the acclaimed Girl & the Goat restaurant in Chicago. The Girl in the Kitchen collects more than 100 of Izard's best recipes, from innovative appetizers like Asian-Spiced English Peas to luscious desserts like Quince and Fig Cobbler with Vanilla Mascarpone. Beautifully photographed and bursting with flavor, personality, and insights into the top chef's process including where she finds her cooking muses, how she shops for food, and which beers and wines she chooses to accompany her meals this book represents the culmination of a craft and provides inspiration that reaches far beyond the kitchen walls.
The Flexitarian Table: Inspired, Flexible Meals for Vegetarians, Meat Lovers, and Everyone in Between
Peter Berley - 2007
The simple, flavorful recipes in The Flexitarian Table show how to prepare vegetarian and meat versions of one dish at the same time without going to any extra trouble. Roast a succulent, crisp chicken with lemon and thyme—and make a tofu version in just minutes. Put some meaty portobello mushroom caps on the grill and, for the carnivore contingent, throw on a steak, then pair them both with a zesty bread crumb salsa. Simmer white beans with carrot and celery and sauté some shrimp, drizzling each with the same rich brown butter sauce with fresh herbs. You'll find many sumptuous meatless dishes as well, including cannelloni with ricotta, Parmesan, and mint or a hearty lasagna with roasted fall vegetables in a sage-scented cheese sauce. In your capable and creative hands, vegetarians will never feel like afterthoughts again, and you'll be able to indulge meat eaters as well, with abundant, satisfying dishes.