Cucina Paradiso: The Heavenly Food of Sicily [Hardcover]

Clifford A. Wright (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Researched by Middle East scholar and food enthusiast Wright ( After the Palestine-Israel War ), this fascinating volume clarifies the mystifying distinction between the cooking of Sicily and other regions of Italy. The reason for the distinction--as he convincingly presents it--was the medieval conquest of Sicily by Arabs whose "culture remained there intact for four hundred years." According to Wright, the Arabs are responsible for, among other things, the creation of the Sicilian "one-pot" meal, a "fondness for stuffed foods . . . shared by the Sicilians," and the introduction of rice, of which "some food writers even argue that the famous Risotto alla Milanese is an Arab-Sicilian invention transplanted north." The resulting collection of recipes reflects Sicily's exotic heritage and includes a mint-infused, Arab-style penne, grilled beef rolls with pecorino, currants and pine nuts and watermelon pudding studded with semisweet chocolate bits, pistachios and candied orange peel. This suggestive study of "the food Sicilians call cucina arabo-sicula " decorously removes another delicious layer of Italy's riches.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 274 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (November 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067176926X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671769260
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,047,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Clifford A. Wright is a cook, food writer, and independent research scholar who won the James Beard/KitchenAid Cookbook of the Year award and the James Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food in 2000 for A Mediterranean Feast (William Morrow). His book A Mediterranean Feast was also a finalist for the cookbook of the year award given by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. He is the author of fourteen other books, twelve of which are cookbooks, including his latest The Best Soups in the World (Wiley, 2010). Colman Andrews, former editor of Saveur magazine called Wright 'the reigning English-speaking expert on the cuisines and culinary culture of the Mediterranean--the real Mediterranean, the whole Mediterranean.' Clifford writes regularly for Saveur, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Fine Cooking, and Food and Wine and wrote all the food entries for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East. Clifford has also lectured on food at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Georgetown University, and the Culinary Institute of America among other universities and venues. As a cooking teacher he has taught cooking classes at the Rhode Island School of Design, Sur la Table, Central Market in Texas and other cooking schools around the United States and Italy.
Before writing about food, Clifford was a foreign policy researcher at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., a Staff Fellow at the Institute of Arab Studies, Belmont, MA, the Executive Director of the American Middle East Peace Research Institute, Cambridge, MA and the publisher of Raising Kids, a child development newsletter for parents. He was written two books on the politics and history in the Middle East.
You can visit him at www.cliffordawright.com and read his food writing at www.zesterdaily.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paradise!, January 2, 2008

By 

Michael A. Scarpitti (Columbus, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cucina Paradiso: The Heavenly Food of Sicily (Hardcover)

The other reviewer perhaps misses the point of Wright's book. It is not a general cookbook on Sicilian cuisine, but one that focusses sharply on certain heavenly dishes that have Arabic origins. The recipe for Tummala alone makes the book worthwhile to buy.

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lean Cuisine, September 18, 2005

By 

Andreas Naumann (Vancouver, B.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cucina Paradiso: The Heavenly Food of Sicily (Hardcover)

A cookbook that's a pleasure to read, but a little light on content. Thus, it's filled out with recipes that are repeditive, although it's possible that this accurately reflects the author's focus on Arab/Sicilian cuisine. There's definitely more heavenly food in Sicily than there is in this oookbook.