Last night I finished Eating My Way Through Italy by Elizabeth Minchilli. While there are recipes, she escorts the reader on her journeys to certain obscure and less obscure culinary corners of Italy. Twenty destinations, all in all. Minchilli describes herself as culturally Jewish. She does not eat horse. But there are pictures. She doesn't eat raw mussels either.
Two of my favorite tidbits were the Milanese restaurant, the Latteria, where "Everything is cooked in silver pots and pans..." And the town of Nuoro in central Sardinia, where only a few women still make the pasta Su Filindeu. Su Filindeu is traditionally served in broth during the Festival of San Francesco di Lula, to pilgrims who reach the mountainous Sanctuary of San Francesco above Nuoro, outside the village of Lula. Pilgrims are first offered coffee and cookies. Then Su Filindeu. Finally meat and potatoes which were used to make the broth.
Edit: oh, I forgot Granarium, the organic seed to loaf establishment in Umbria. They grow and thresh their wheat, mill the grain and bake the bread on premises. Wood-fired ovens.
