Customer Reviews

La Cucina dei Poveri

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Let me acknowledge right up front that the author of La Cucina dei Poveri dedicates this book to me, and he mentions me over and over again in his introductions to recipes. I suppose I lose a huge amount of credibility on that account. But on the other hand, the author has personally prepared for me every single recipe in this book. I've been tasting these dishes over a period of twenty years. Hopefully these firsthand experiences qualify me as a reviewer.

The introductory chapter of La Cucina dei Poveri and the prefaces to each recipe give casual but informative glimpses into Italian cooking as well as the culture of Italian American families. The recipes cover all seasons and a wide range of tastes and levels of formality. The ingredients called for are pure but rarely expensive, difficult to find, or in any other way daunting. The instructions are clear and sensibly sequenced, and so accurate that the many dishes I've prepared on my own have been identical to those the author has cooked for me. In a word, this is a cookbook is a treasure.

So, what could I tell you? This man reveres food. Italian food. He's sort of the "Proust of Pasta". What that Frenchman did with his recollections of a doughnut, Skip does with 80 odd wonderful recipes. Every recipe has a story, every story has a happy ending. On your palate.

I'm a fussy eater and I've personally made at least half the dishes in the book and enjoyed them all. These recipes are, in a certain sense, less instructions on preparation than enticements to taste new flavors and improvise with your own ideas. There is also the opportunity to see how these dishes were prepared by the people who brought them to our shores. Prepare a few of these dishes and you'll understand that an Olive Garden is a wonderful thing in Tuscany, not in a mall.

Signore Lombardi has opened his childhood to us sharing his very personal culinary journey. Buy this book. Cook these dishes. Mangia bene! And always remember, "The better the groceries, the better the meal."

I've been looking for recipes of the food of my childhood for three years, this book is the first one that even gets close. My family are all zen cooks - they rely on years of experience and can barely describe what they do to make things delicious. This book could be the forgotten manual for my big Italian-American family.

La Cucina dei Poveri (The Cooking of the Poor)

This is the food from every party I attended in the 50's, 60's & 70's in the small industrial Connecticut town where I grew up. Half the population of Southington had forebears from southern Italy and the kitchens of my classmates always smelled of sausage and fennel, swimmering tomato sauce, olive oil, and garlic. Those of us who weren't Italian longed to be-- just so we could claim that food was ours...

Even if this book has no fancy pictures, it has such clear instructions that anyone who can can chop an onion or boil water for pasta will be able to craft a meal that will get everyone at the table talking about those good old days...These recipes aren't rocket science, but they are just what my neighbors, your sister-in-law,and husband's nonna cooked-- both every day and on special occasions.


This isn't a pretentious book; in fact, now, because it's out of print, it's sort of a virtual book--available only as a download to Kindle. But that's great-- it means you can take the recipes with you-- to the grocery store, on vacation, to your girlfriend (the one who's trying to get you to propose).

Actually,if I wanted an unusual wedding gift for someone really into their Italian heritage, I might download this book to a Kindle and give it to a hip or geeky Italian-American bride & groom as a wedding gift, just to keep the recipes in la familiglia, so to speak.