The Food of Southern Italy [Hardcover]

Carlo Middione (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1987

The Food of Southern Italy provides a treasure trove of traditional, never-before-published recipes from the regions of Southern Italy, featuring glossaries of Italian wines and cheeses. A permanent addition to a cook's kitchen. 16 pages of color photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Middione wants his readers to move beyond the stereotypes of Southern Italian food, to eat the simple dishes he treasures. Granted, many of the recipes are familiar, and there are many other good Italian cookbooks. But he succeeds wonderfully in presenting scores of others: trout with mushrooms, snails with oregano, mushrooms roasted with pine nuts, tiny pastries called rose wheels. Each recipe specifies the region in which it originated. His menu and wine suggestions are especially good. Recommended. SP
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 16 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (October 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688050425
• ISBN-13: 978-0688050429
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #341,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars cook with a genius, December 28, 1999

By 

carrie Mathews (Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Food of Southern Italy (Hardcover)

As a professional chef there is one book that I constantly use and refer to. Carlo's "The Food of Southern Italy", the recipes are authentic and well tested. You will never have a failure with any of Carlo's delicious dishes. This is also just a fun book to read. I particularly love his paragraph on cooking pasta. He is a treasure, a gem in a profession filled with rock stars. Carlo's cooking is based on tradition and culture, in other words, real food. Buy this book, cook any of the recipes, cook all of them, because there is not one that isn't fantastic.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece, July 3, 2000

By 

M. Fantino (San Francisco, California USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Food of Southern Italy (Hardcover)

Carlo Middione's THE FOOD OF SOUTHERN ITALY is of that rare category of cookbooks in that you are never sure which you like doing more, cooking from his book, or reading it in a comfortable chair. You can hear his voice as you read his heartwarming stories of his fascinating life and culture. The recipes are fantastic, 'Nfigghiulata Antica, Cozze con le Salsicce and his different ways of doing Baccala are among my favorites from this book. This is a very well researched landmark in Regional Italian Cuisine, that's why it stands out. Mr. Middione is in the same legue as Waverly Root and Elizabeth David.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book -- not just readable, but usable, July 6, 2003

By 

Brian Connors (Yarmouth, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Food of Southern Italy (Hardcover)

Got it years and years ago -- maybe late 80s -- one of my first cookbook purchases when I was still in Middle School as a matter of fact. Excellent book (I highly recommend the Sicilian rosemary chicken). My dust jacket is damaged well beyond repair, and common sense tells me I should have thrown it out long ago, but I don't want to. The recipes are great, the graphic design of the book is unique and easy to read, and the pictures are some of the slickest and most appetizing I've ever seen in an American cookbook.

My only complaint with the book is that it's a bit too professional -- tools like raviolatrici (a very hard-to-find rolling-pin-like device used for making ravioli) and plaques au four (basically a huge cookie sheet) are not readily available in many places, requiring recourse to restaurant supply houses and large Italian neighborhoods; also, there is a one-size-fits-all approach to certain things such as bread dough that fits perfectly into a catering business such as the author's Vivande Porte Via but short-shrifts the richness of traditional Italian baking. These are minor issues, though, worthy of docking a half-star at most, and all the recipes are still quite usable for the home cook, and even then the professional mentality still leads to a great attention to detail. The book is eminently usable.

Published in 1987, this is now quite an old book, but it's still in my opinion a classic of Italian cooking. Just prepare yourself for the possibility that you might need a second copy in case your main copy gets trashed in the kitchen.