Customer Reviews

Cucina of Le Marche: A Chef's Treasury of Recipes from Italy's Last Culinary Frontier

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an avid cookbook collector, this is my favorite 2006 acquisition. I have been a devoted fan of Maestro, Chef Trabocchi's marvelous DC area restaurant and have been eagerly awaiting the publication of this book to learn more about his inspirations and bring some of the magic into my own kitchen.

Even if you haven't had the privilege of dining at Maestro, this book is a must-own for anyone who appreciates authenticity and a unique take on a traditional cuisine.

Buy this book and be prepared to fall in love with Le Marche!

I love Fabio's cooking. It's Inspired and exploding with amazing flavor. Fof over a year and a half worling in Maestro, I didn't always understood where the genious came from. This book has allowed me to understand a lot about him.

The recipes in the book are not your typical italian fare, it's a rustic, culinary treasure from a relatively undiscovered region of Italy. Very recomendable.

Part travelogue, part cookbook, Cucina of Le Marche intersperses its recipes with family memories and great storytelling. This is not just a cookbook to quickly consult over the stove; it's a book you'll want to curl up with and really read. Some of the recipes are fairly involved, but the writing is easy to follow and what I've made so far has been delicious. The rice and spinach soup with prosciutto and parmesan is heavenly, and the Le Marche risotto is easy to make but super yummy (the secret ingredient is cinnamon). Beginner cooks, advanced chefs and avid readers should all find something to love here.

Even with all the amazing restaurants in New York, I still crave the delicious food at Trabocchi's restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in VA. With this cookbook I can bring a little bit of his cuisine to my own kitchen. Bravo!

Sadly, I find this book quite boring.

There is no real description of what makes this region unique. There isn't even a map. The recipes don't give much help either to pinpoint what is unique. For instance pasta with white truffles, pork with polenta, his father's pork chops, etc. Judging from the recipes they seem more like American-Italian restaurant fare than local Le Marche fare.

The price is on the high end given that the book is in black and white and only has a few inserts with colour pictures.

Since my husband is from Marche, I enjoyed reading this cookbook with the side descriptions of life in the province. Some of the recipes would be difficult to make here due to ingredients, but there are some Marche favorites that are delicious.

This book is based in large part upon the story of the Familia Trabocci,

That story gives the reader/cook some real insight into the spirit of the food which is made with the excellent recipes. This is not really a cookbook for the beginner because, although it has very fine illustrations of dishes on the table, there are few procedural illustrations and many of the regional ingredients may be difficlt to obtain. It is a fine book of the cooking and customs of a region of Italy. Buy it and read it, you will enjoy it! You should also try to reproduce the cooking through some of the recipes in the spirit of the region.

The well-chosen recipes in this book get directly to the essence of Le Marche cuisine. My only regret is that there aren't a few more recipes included! These are the dishes I grew up with and the same ones I enjoy when I am in Le Marche visiting relatives. It's a great book for the cognoscenti!

Really my title says it all. I enjoyed reading this book and it is well written and filled with good prose and stories of Le Marche and the chef's upbringing. Unfortunately, the recipes I've tried have not worked as expected. It makes me think that the recipes were not well tested and not much care went into putting them together. If you want a cookbook to cook from, this might work, but be prepared to improvise (too much rice in the rice spinach soup for example). On the other hand if you want a nice little regional take on Italian food through the eyes of a prominent chef, then get a copy.