Customer Reviews

Italian Farmhouse Cookbook

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The `Italian Farmhouse Cookbook' by Susan Hermann Loomis is part of a three (3) book series of farmhouse recipe books covering France and the US as well as Italy. My first and most important caution to the prospective buyer is that if all you want is a book of Italian recipes, there are easily a hundred or more books that would better fill that need. Ms. Loomis books are very good, but they are as much or more for readers and foodies as they are for cooks. At least a third of the text in this book gives background on Italian farmers, their life, and their produce. A second reason for this caution is based on an observation I saw in `The Medieval Kitchen' which points out that in the 15th century, city cooking was much more interesting than country cooking, as major urban trading centers had both access to foreign products and a nobility which encouraged creative cooking. Lest you think much has probably changed in the last 500 years, Ms. Loomis' book itself states that Italian country cooking was, until very recently, limited by poor roads and limited trade.

This is not to say this is not a good book. In fact, for travelers who may have an interest in visiting rural Italy, it is an excellent book. It is also excellent in giving a picture of rural agriculture in Italy over the last 100 years. It is quite surprising how recently the Italian peasant has been freed from a crippling economic serfdom by both the national Italian government and the European Economic Community centered in Brussels. All sorts of things that new foodies assume have been around for centuries such as fine Italian wines, dried pasta, high quality olive oil, and grappa comparable to French cognac are actually very recent developments. One can easily get the wrong impression from the age of other products such as Parmesano-Reggiano and prosciutto de Parma that Italy has always been the culinary dynamo it is today.

I must say the recipes in this book are very good and very typically Italian. The surest symptom of an Italian style recipe is when one wonders that you need a recipe at all to make the dish. Just as I marvel at the utter simplicity of Italian influenced recipes from London's River Café and Jamie Oliver, most of the recipes in this book are based on simplicity itself. Even better, there is very little use of premium ingredients such as truffles and balsamic vinegar. On the other hand, I am a little puzzled at how few recipes there are featuring wild mushrooms and wild greens such as dandelion and nettles. There are a fair number of recipes for game such as guinea hens and wild boar. This is great for the accuracy of the book's picture of Italian rural cuisine, but it does not add a lot to the count of recipes useable by a foodie in suburban Newark.

I am especially pleased that the book covers the full range of Italian regions from Friuli to Sicily to Sardinia. I am especially pleased to see a recipe for the traditional Sardinian flatbread. This recipe plus a few others may be worth the price of admission, as it is an easy preparation that requires no fussing with yeast or any other leaveners.

The subjects of the recipe chapters follow a very traditional Italian model based on courses. The chapter titles are:

Appetizers and Snacks, including sidebars on Buffalo mozzarella and Italian organic farming.
Salads, including sidebars on Balsamic Vinegar and capers.
Soups, both Minestre and zuppa.
First Courses, including sidebars on Parmigiano-Reggiano and rice farming.
Second courses, primarily lamb, pork, poultry, rabbit, and boar.
The Vegetable Garden, including sidebars on grappa, organic farming, and peppers.
From the Bread Oven. Not a lot, as the Italians, like the French, typically bought bread from the baker.
Sweet, Sweet, with fruit, nut cakes, fruit tarts, and marmalades.
The Pantry, or what to keep on hand to whip up fast meals.
The basics, or how to make brodo and doughs.

This is the kind of cookbook you read in bed at night to better understand a major world cuisine and get ideas for improvisations based on the Italian style of cooking. The paperback is simply not up to the rigors of standing open on the kitchen table.

This is an excellent background book to accompany more systematic treatments of Italian cuisine such as the excellent books by Marcella Hazan, Lydia Bastianich, and Giuliano Bugialli.

Recently, I acquired Susan Loomis' new cook book Italian Farmhouse Cooking. One day, on a boring Sunday afternoon, I was sitting at the dining room table thinking. Directly in front of me was this wonderful cookbook. I picked it up, having nothing better to do, and began to flip through the pages. The more I read, the more intrigued I became. Not only did it have new, unique foods that I had never even could have fathomed could be made so easily; it had interesting stories of the famous Italian culture. As I sat there, reading the short essays, I got the feeling that I had been put into Italy, enjoying food and culture with all of them. I rode the train up the mountain, and I tasted the wonderful taste of great antipastos and such. This book is certainly a must buy for all enthusiastic cookers, for true cooking cannot be found in the recipe; it can only be found in the culture.

If I were a green bean willing to sacrifice myself for someone's dinner, I'd hope that they read Susan Hermann Loomis' Italian Farmhouse Cookbook and prepared me as 'Green Beans with Tomatoes' with fresh sage, olive oil, and garlic.

We had Loomis' green beans tonight along with 'Chicken with Lemon Rosemary Salt.' Last night we had her 'Red Onion Pizza' which is made with the best homemade pizza dough that I've found anywhere.

If you're looking for a good Italian cookbook with simple recipes and easy prep this is it.

Mark this one KEEPER.

If you are interested in "real" Italian food from the farmhouses or peasant kitchens around Italy you will find this cookbook a great reference tool. It is evident that Susan Herrmann Loomis spent a great deal of time researching the recipes and culinary history while writing this book. As the Italian Food Host at BellaOnline and an avid cookbook collector of anything related to Italian cuisine, I would highly recommend this book for someone collecting Italian cookbooks. If it were your first Italian cookbook however I would encourage you to do more research. The one glaring negative of this book was that it did not have a single food photo. I can't imagine that in this day and age that publishers have not figured out that great food photos sell cookbooks!

I am a cook, not a poser. I don't buy cookbooks because they look good on my coffee table. I buy cookbooks because the recipes intrigue me, and I want to learn more about a particular style of cooking. Who cares what fonts are used, as long as they're readable? Who cares if the illustrations are simplistic? It's called "The Italian FARMHOUSE Cookbook." If a book that purports to be about rustic Italian cooking had the same look and feel of Thomas Keller's ultra-sleek French Laundry Cookbook, I'd be concerned. The same way I'd be concerned if I walked into a local osteria in some gorgeous, dripping-with-age-and-charm rustic Italian town and saw track lighting. This book states -- proudly -- that it is about the simplicities of Italian food, and brings to the fore the kind of inside information that only an author who has walked the walk can know. If you want slick photographs and pretentious food, the titles of which that take almost as long to pronounce as the dish takes to be prepared, go elsewhere. If you've recently read "Under the Tuscan Sun" and wish you could have joined Frances Mayes in her kitchen, this just might be the next best thing.

The 11th Reviewer of the Italian Farmhouse Cookbook is such
a naysayer! I've been 'eyeing' this cookbook for the past year
and I can't wait to get my ovenmitts on it!
As another Reviewer said, 'this is a FARMHOUSE cookbook';
recipes made by REAL people and recipes meant to be used, instead
of merely looked at on the coffee table.

I loved this cookbook. I would urge anyone to use her trick to make balsamic vinegar thick and sweet, and the versatile dough used to make pizza and rolls is heavenly! I really enjoyed all of the stories in it also. Great book!

Having recently spent three weeks in Tuscany, I was eager to find a cookbook to help me duplicate the tastes I'd experienced. I knew French Farmhouse Cookbook was a marvel and decided to try this, much to my pleasure.

The recipes are perfect, to my way of thinking, clearly written, easily followed, and of course, as with all Loomis' recipes, simply delicious.

These are comfort foods, though salubrious, relying heavily on fresh ingredients, but don't most good recipes! Now, I'm more eager than ever to grow my own produce, mushroom hunt, keep a window, herb garden and find an excellent butcher.

Over two hundred recipes and kitchen tips from farmers and growers are accompanied by no photos, but provide an excellent guide to the best seasons and uses of fresh produce. From Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms to Golden Artichoke Rolls and Cornmeal Cookies, this provides a rich assortment of Italian favorites.

This is my favorite cookbook. Most of my cooking is done from memory and simply throwing ingredients together, but when it comes to using cookbooks, this is the one I use most! Every Christmas I make at least one of the dessert recipes - always the Sicilian almond cookies. This year I tried the lemon biscotti, and they were a huge hit! I also love reading the stories detailing from where the recipes originated. I enjoy the design of the book and the tips scattered throughout the pages. I love this cookbook so much that I have purchased additional copies to give to friends and family as gifts!