Heather Cooks Italian

[hjshorter]

adrober's post about risotto has spurred me to shamefully admit to one and all that I do not own a single Italian Cookbook, unless you count the Time-Life Cooking of Italy.

So tell me, which one (or ones) do I start with? Marcella Hazan? Batali? Bastianich?

[fresco]

Marcella is pretty severe, but she's good.

[maggiethecat]

unless you count the Time-Life Cooking of Italy. 

Hey, Heather, that's terrific book. Really! I've been cooking from it for twenty years, as recently as last week (stuffed veal breast.)

Fresco nailed Marcella perfectly: "Severe." But she's very solid, very complete. I'd start with her.

Edited November 14, 2003 by maggiethecat (log)

[Basilgirl]

All three!

Marcella's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking for classic Italian - start out with her tomato sauce with butter and onion, eggplant parmigiana, crespelle with tomato & prosciutto, and bolognese sauce; Mario's Simple Italian Cooking - start out with his basic tomato sauce, it's delicious, and try the pork Perugina - thick boneless chops with a yummy white wine/prosciutto/caper/anchovy sauce; and Lidia's Italian-American cookbook - everything I've tried out of that book has been fantastic, especially the chicken scarpariello and the chicken valdostana with braised lentils with spinach. You can get that last one off of her Web site.

Good luck! Hope you enjoy these books as much as I do. You can't go wrong with any of them.

[MatthewB]

I think there was a thread on Italian cookbooks not too long ago but I can't find it.

However, "purists"--both eGullet-based & non-eGullet--seem to tout Anna del Conte. (I've only some of her smaller books.)

Her classic work is: The Classic Food of Northern Italy

FWIW, I've been cooking lately from Lynne Rossetto Kasper's The Italian Country Table : Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens. So far, that's been a great book to cook from.

[Basilgirl]

FWIW, I've been cooking lately from Lynne Rossetto Kasper's The Italian Country Table : Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens. So far, that's been a great book to cook from.

Yes indeed. She is a wonderful cook and her recipes are great. The book's a good read, also.

Heather: Mario's Holiday Food is a nice little book too.

[bloviatrix]

I think Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is an essential book to have in one's library. It makes a great resource. But the one I turn to most frequently is Jack Bishop's The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. He has a recipe for a Tomato Tart with Basil-Garlic crust that's out of this world.

[Dave the Cook]

Here's an Amazon eGullet link for Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.

One for Mario's Simple Italian Cooking

and one for Lidia's Itlaian-American Kitchen.

If you have to pick one to start on, I agree with Maggie and fresco, both on the assessment of, and the recommendation for, Marcella.

[Basilgirl]

PS - Make It Italian by Nancy Verde Barr is also very good.

As is Italian Classics by the Cook's Illustrated people.

I think I have too many Italian cookbooks.

[hjshorter]

And I have too many Asian cookbooks. Maybe we should have a book swap.

[Basilgirl]

And I have too many Asian cookbooks. Maybe we should have a book swap.

Hmmm. I don't think I have ONE Asian cookbook. But I must have at least 10 Italian ones. But I couldn't part with any of them.

Please check out Lidia's Web site. There are some damn good recipes there.

[snowangel]

Time to hit the library, Heather! (I'm the check them out before buying person.)

[tommy]

yes yes yes. anything by mario or lidia. i've used books by both of them over the years, and have always had luck with the recipes, not to mention they offer an endless source of inspiration. if you get lidia on sunday afternoons on PBS like we do, you'll find that sunday night might very well turn out to be "italian" night at the shorter household.

[hjshorter]

OK, Marcella, Mario, and Lidia. Susan's right, time to hit the library.

A small confession: I had Simple Italian Cooking a few years ago and gave it away. Oh, the shame!

[SethG]

Heather, I just found out that two of Lidia's books that I reserved are waiting for me at the NYC public library. I'll let you know what I think!

Aside from that, I too recommend Marcella.

[fresco]

OK, Marcella, Mario, and Lidia.  Susan's right, time to hit the library.

A small confession:  I had Simple Italian Cooking a few years ago and gave it away.  Oh, the shame!

A word of caution about Marcella: she can be preachy and does have an annoying habit of finding almost every food item in North America wanting in comparison with what she says she has in Italy. But if you can ignore that, she knows her stuff.

[MatthewB]

del Conte sunk quickly.

So perhaps another Anglo-angle isn't the thing, but . . .

What about the River Cafe books?

[fresco]

This might be the right place to ask if anyone subscribes to or otherwise reads La Cucina Italiana, the English-language version of a magazine published in Italy.

I picked up the first few issues a few years back. The recipes were interesting but the execution was wretched--a straight transliteration of stuff from the Italian edition plus some truly horrible American filler. My sense from glancing at it on the news stand is that it has improved. Has it?

http://www.cucinait.com/World/Home_We.asp

[hjshorter]

del Conte sunk quickly.

So perhaps another Anglo-angle isn't the thing, but . . .

What about the River Cafe books?

I had never heard of her, but it's worth looking for at the library.

River Cafe? Isn't that where Jamie cooked?

[Jinmyo]

This might be the right place to ask if anyone subscribes to or otherwise reads La Cucina Italiana, the English-language version of a magazine published in Italy.

I picked up the first few issues a few years back. The recipes were interesting but the execution was wretched--a straight transliteration of stuff from the Italian edition plus some truly horrible American filler. My sense from glancing at it on the news stand is that it has improved. Has it?

http://www.cucinait.com/World/Home_We.asp

I picked up one about four months ago.

No. It hadn't improved.

[essvee]

No one has mentioned Bugialli and The Fine Art of Italian Cooking. That's a can't miss.

I'm very fond of Carlo's Middione's La Vera Cucina and The Foods of Southern Italy. He's a great writer and I want to eat everything he writers about.

Michele Scicolone's Italian Holiday Cooking and A Fresh Taste of Italy are both outstanding and unique.

And, of course, Marcella is the queen. Her books put me on the path to the cook I am today. It's truly unfortunate that The Classic Italian Cookbook and More Classic Italian Cooking have been condensed into The Essentials. Marcela's Italian Kitchen and her last, Marcella Cucina are just as good but you must start with the first two.

Marcella snapped at me once. It was when I was still in the business. I went to see her at the Fancy Food Show; she was pushing Cucina. She did a risotto demo. She looked damn beautiful, no matter that she was 80 at the time and had a withered hand from a stroke. I was near the back, and I asked her in which risottos one should use wine and which one shouldn't. She must not have heard properly and snapped back, "You use it when you need it!" I was embarrassed to bits but I didn't fall out of love with her. I taught myself to handroll pasta from her books almost 20 years ago... snif.

[Pan]

Does anyone use Ada Boni's Il Talismano della Cucina anymore? That was my mother's basic Italian cookbook, and it has good basic recipes in it. Very practical, too. My parents claim that that was the classic Italian cookbook when they got it (back in the 50s, I guess).

[hjshorter]

Just wanted to update this. I checked out Lidia's Italian Table at the library, and everything in it looks delicious. None of the other books mentioned in this thread were available, except one by Marcella Hazan, and I have to say I liked the looks of Lidia's recipes just a bit more.

I will try some recipe and report back.

[pjs]

Lidia's recipes are almost always worth the effort and yes, Marcella can seem to be extremely intimidating at first glance until you get to know her and her style.

Essvee is dead-on in recommending Marcella's first and second book instead of the condensed Essentials, if you can find them. Lots of good stuff was left out of the compilation. The recipe for White Clam Sauce with Parmigiano Reggiano immediately comes to mind.

PJ

Edjit: Lidia not Lydia.

Edited December 8, 2003 by pjs (log)

[maggiethecat]

This might be the right place to ask if anyone subscribes to or otherwise reads La Cucina Italiana, the English-language  version of a magazine published in Italy.

]

For a glorious few years, HH's neighbour at the industrial park was Speed Impex, a leading importer of foreign periodicals. We had unlimited access to their dumpster, and it was almost heaven to have , weekly, free copies of Paris-Match, Country Life and the Times of London.

And La Cucina Italiana and Sale e Peppe. I cling to those old mags still, and bought a little Italian-English dictionary to fill in the blanks from long-ago college Italian and three months in Italy. I'm talking the Italian version, and it's been ten years, but those magazines were an inspiration and continue to be.