17 replies to this topic

[MsLunaRay]

I am looking for cookbooks that feature recipes and cuisine from the Northern region of Italy. ( My ancestors originate from Torino. ) I am looking for 'light' or healthier versions of traditional northern Italian recipes. Any recommendations?

[LindaK]

A Passion for Piemonte by Matt Kramer is excellent for that region, though I wouldn't say it tries to be light/healthy.

[Brown Hornet]

I just received this cookbook for Christmas:

http://www.amazon.co.../ref=pd_sim_b_1

It's based entirely on Northern Italian agriturismi recipes and is organized by region. I haven't had a chance to cook anything from it yet, but the recipes are fairly diverse and rustic as befitting a cookbook based on Northern Italian farmhouse cooking.

[nickrey]

Stefano De Pieri is an Australian based Itaian cook from Treviso, near Venice. One of his books that may fit your needs is Modern Italian Food. Another author from the North is Giorgio Locatelli, who is from Corgeno in Lombardy. He owns a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant in London called Locanda Locatelli (menu here). His book is called "Made in Italy Food and Stories." It is a cookbook that can be read cover to cover because of his good writing style and use of anecdotes. The recipes are exceptional as well. Good luck.

[ChrisTaylor]

Bocca - Jacob Kennedy. Made in Italy is also an exceptional book. It's my go-to Italian book.

Edited by ChrisTaylor, 27 December 2012 - 03:09 PM.

[Syzygies]

"Il tipico e' anche mitico": 105 ricette della tradizione ligure (I Quaderni di Ligucibario) (Italian Edition) [Kindle Edition] ($2.99)
http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/B00A2UD2B2

La Cucina Regionale Italiana (Italian Edition) [Kindle Edition] ($6.40)
http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/B00791ZF5S

They take no shelf space, and you only care about Italian food vocabulary, right? There are others like these, but I like these.

Seriously, my limited polyglot skills are a constant struggle for me, but removing all the filters that come with English language Italian cookbooks is a revelation.

(Google translate is your friend.)

[qrn]

I am looking for cookbooks that feature recipes and cuisine from the Northern region of Italy. ( My ancestors originate from Torino. ) I am looking for 'light' or healthier versions of traditional northern Italian recipes. Any recommendations?

My grandparents were from trentino,and you are correct its not the Italian that shows up here..I cook some things that I remember from my grandmothers cooking,however I have not seen any cookbooks from there.I found a book called the corageous people from the Dolomites,however ,no recipes...
Bud

[Bill Klapp]

I second Kramer's Passion for Piedmont heartily. I live in Neive and Torino, and I am cooking the brasato al Barolo out of his cookbook tonight! He spent a year in Bra to research and write the book, and while he is a well-respected wine writer, I have always thought that food is his greater passion. While richness is the order of the day with most Piemontese cuisine, the magic is in the low-carb nature of the cooking. Lots of veggies, and even the pasta is heavily protein, made with 40 egg yolks per kilo of flour at its finest. If you need one perfectly healthy Piemontese favorite, go for Jerusalem artichokes!

[Bill Klapp]

P.S. The book is out of print, as far as I know...

[LindaK]

While richness is the order of the day with most Piemontese cuisine, the magic is in the low-carb nature of the cooking. Lots of veggies, and even the pasta is heavily protein, made with 40 egg yolks per kilo of flour at its finest.

Interesting, that never occurred to me...their pasta is indeed magic, the best I've ever eaten, but the large number of egg yolks made it seem like too much of an indulgence to make at home. I'll rethink that!

[teonzo]

Seriously, my limited polyglot skills are a constant struggle for me, but removing all the filters that come with English language Italian cookbooks is a revelation.

(Google translate is your friend.)

If you are willing to get books in Italian language, then I strongly suggest this one:


Anna Gosetti della Salda - "Le ricette regionali italiane"

most people consider it to be the best book on Italian regional cuisine (it includes all regions, not only the north).
Don't know if there is an e-book edition (or a translated one).



Teo

[Syzygies]

Anna Gosetti della Salda - "Le ricette regionali italiane"

Thanks! I nabbed the Amazon Prime copy; I'll have it in two days.

In the 1970's and 1980's one couldn't walk past a bookstore remainder table without tripping over a stack of Ada Boni's Italian Regional Cooking selling for a song; for many of us this was our first real contact with Italian cooking. (It is still available used, and I highly recommend it. The recipes are terse and many.)

It had been put to me in Italy that her original Il Talismano della Felicità was the definitive regional reference. I'm genuinely curious; how would the debate now go, comparing these books?

[Syzygies]

the low-carb nature of the cooking.

A different view would be to eat everything in moderation, and view processed foods as the enemy. From Japan to Italy, there's a fluctuating stigma associated to brown rice, rustic grains. "It reminds us of the war, of being poor" versus romanticizing La Cucina Povera. (My wife and I still laugh over our most ostentatious honeymoon agriturismo proudly serving the same ingredient three times as "Cucina Povera" when an actual peasant would deftly disguise her limited larder.)

In any case, our two systematic modifications to Italian cooking are to never open a can of tomatoes (we skin, partially dry and freeze each year's crop, and I recoil from the taste of canned tomatoes in any restaurant), and to grind our own flour, sieving out the bran. One ends up with a product as workable as white flour, with a chestnut color and a denser consistency; we use the Wolfgang Mock Grain Mill and a drum sieve.

Carbs aren't evil; white flour is evil. There's something to the glycemic index; our bodies digest less processed foods more slowly, which is good.

[Bill Klapp]

Also great is Silver Spoon (not the old NYC duo), the bible of Italian cooking, which is available in English, but covers all of Italy, not just the north.

Linda, if you have the knack of making pasta, there is nothing indulgent about 40-yolk pasta! Nor is there any magic to 40, but a good idea to strive for as close to that proportion as you can for great tajarin...

[OliverB]

The Splendid Table is great, focuses on Emilia Romagna.

[Syzygies]

If you are willing to get books in Italian language, then I strongly suggest this one:
Anna Gosetti della Salda - "Le ricette regionali italiane"

Well, my copy arrived and it's an amazing book, perhaps the definitive regional cookbook. Here is a review that helps place it:

http://www.foodarts....talian-cookbook

More comprehensive than Artusi, better than Ada Boni, and while the Silver Spoon tries to scratch this itch in English, I never felt compelled to own it after returning my library copy. Of the four, this book is the one if one had to choose.

[qrn]

If you are willing to get books in Italian language, then I strongly suggest this one:
Anna Gosetti della Salda - "Le ricette regionali italiane"

Well, my copy arrived and it's an amazing book, perhaps the definitive regional cookbook. Here is a review that helps place it:

http://www.foodarts....talian-cookbook

More comprehensive than Artusi, better than Ada Boni, and while the Silver Spoon tries to scratch this itch in English, I never felt compelled to own it after returning my library copy. Of the four, this book is the one if one had to choose.

well I guess I had better bone up on my Italian language skills,grand parents were from there and I spoke it till Iwent to Jr high,after leaving their house...Bud

[basquecook]

I have been reading through Passion for Piedmont.  I love the area and actually got married right outside Barolo duing truffle season.  I have been there a few times. I found a lot of these recipes to be very lovely.  There are some nice agnolotti recipes, the basic tajarin dough, lots of anchovy recipes.  While it's not comprehensive, it is a definitely a very nice book.  

 

I have made a few things from the book but, never actually followed it to the letter.  For example, I really enjoyed the idea behind, the squash and cauliflower with anchovy dressing but, went in my own direction.  

 

There are basic bagna cauda recipes too.  

 

The few occasions when I found myself in Bra, I went to the Slow Food University over there and had a couple of meals.  There has to be a book that they put out?