Fifty years ago, a group of Italian scholars gathered to discuss a problem: how to preserve traditional Italian cooking. They formed the Italian Academy of Cuisine to document classic recipes from every region. The academy’s more than seven thousand associates spread out to villages everywhere, interviewing grandmothers and farmers at their stoves, transcribing their recipes—many of which had never been documented before. This is the culmination of that research, an astounding feat—2,000 recipes that represent the patrimony of Italian country cooking. Each recipe is labeled with its region of origin, and it’s not just the ingredients but also the techniques that change with the geography. Sprinkled throughout are historical recipes that provide fascinating views into the folk culture of the past. There are no fancy flourishes here, and no shortcuts; this is true salt-of-the-earth cooking. The book is an excellent everyday source for easily achievable recipes, with such simple dishes as White Bean and Escarole Soup, Polenta with Tomato Sauce, and Chicken with Lemon and Capers. For ease of use there are four different indexes. La Cucina is an essential reference for every cook’s library.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
The most complete and authentic Italian cookbook ever published in the English language, featuring more than 2,000 recipes by home cooks, for home cooks.
“This bible of the Italian culinary tradition is now available in English, a must-have reference book for all who love cooking and eating the dishes of Il Bel Paese—Italy.”
~Lidia Bastianich, author of Lidia’s Italy
“If you have been to Italy and still dream about the fish soup you had in Liguria, the peppery pasta of Rome, or the seafood risotto of Venice—not to worry—all these dishes can be found here. This book shows that trends may come and go but the tradition of great, heartwarming Italian food is here to stay.”
~Biba Caggiano, author of Biba’s Italy
“As one would expect from a book put together by the members of the Italian Academy of Cuisine, this represents the apex of Italian food culture. The book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the intricate complexities of real Italian food. I have found here recipes unknown to me, despite my having studied the subject for more than five decades.”
~Comm. Antonio Carluccio, OBE, author of Italia: The Recipes and Customs of the Regions
"This impressive collection of recipes is a testament to the extraordinary diversity of Italian cuisine."
~Giuliano Hazan, author of Giuliano Hazan's Thirty Minute Pasta
“A comprehensive book, loaded with interesting recipes. This is the way Italians cook.”
~Pino Luongo, chef and author of Two Meatballs in the Italian Kitchen and Dirty Dishes
“At a time when regional distinctions are blurring in Italian cuisine, the publication of La Cucina comes as a forceful and comprehensive reminder of the enormous diversity and honest goodness of home cooking, which has always been the true basis for the country’s gastronomy.”
~John Mariani, author of The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink
“Many of us feel we know the regional dishes of Italy, yet this bible of a book broadens our horizons to the unexpected. It will teach you the traditions and ingredients of Italy and an understanding of Italians’ approach to cooking—a book to truly treasure.”
~Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, The River Café
"If you’ve traveled in Italy, you’ve probably wondered why, say, pasta with chickpeas is made differently in towns 10 kilometers apart, or why you have never found that spice cake you loved in Terni anywhere else. That’s because Italian cooking isn’t just regional, it’s microregional as La Cucina proves to fascinating effect. This book packs in so many recipes there’s no room for bucolic back stories, photos or detailed instructions…but what delicious recipes you’ll find…picking and preparing dishes at random will prove an enjoyable game for winter’s day."
~New York Times Book Review
"La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy (Rizzoli, 2009) is a masterpiece of Italian cooking, compiled by the founders of the Italian Academy of Cuisine. It's an essential addition to any cook's library with 2,000 recipes."
~Saveur
"Try to cook your way through one of these books. Bigger is better with new cookbook trend."
~The Associated Press
"The book is absurdly comprehensive…"
~Time Out New York
"La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy (Rizzoli; 928 pages; $45). More than 2,000 recipes from all over Italy, collected a half century ago by cultural preservationists and published here for the first time in English. The recipes are neatly organized and identified by region - there are dozens of recipes just for anchovies (yes, that is a good thing). Every home should have a copy."
~The San Francisco Chronicle
"The book reads that way, familial and familiar, idiosyncratic yet organized, and feels at times like spending a year in Italian kitchens, circa 1950. Nonni would approve."
~Foreword Magazine
“This bible of the Italian culinary tradition is now available in English, a must-have reference book for all who love cooking and eating the dishes of Il Bel Paese—Italy.”
~Lidia Bastianich, author of Lidia’s Italy
“If you have been to Italy and still dream about the fish soup you had in Liguria, the peppery pasta of Rome, or the seafood risotto of Venice—not to worry—all these dishes can be found here. This book shows that trends may come and go but the tradition of great, heartwarming Italian food is here to stay.”
~Biba Caggiano, author of Biba’s Italy
“As one would expect from a book put together by the members of the Italian Academy of Cuisine, this represents the apex of Italian food culture. The book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the intricate complexities of real Italian food. I have found here recipes unknown to me, despite my having studied the subject for more than five decades.”
~Comm. Antonio Carluccio, OBE, author of Italia: The Recipes and Customs of the Regions
"This impressive collection of recipes is a testament to the extraordinary diversity of Italian cuisine."
~Giuliano Hazan, author of Giuliano Hazan's Thirty Minute Pasta
“A comprehensive book, loaded with interesting recipes. This is the way Italians cook.”
~Pino Luongo, chef and author of Two Meatballs in the Italian Kitchen and Dirty Dishes
“At a time when regional distinctions are blurring in Italian cuisine, the publication of La Cucina comes as a forceful and comprehensive reminder of the enormous diversity and honest goodness of home cooking, which has always been the true basis for the country’s gastronomy.”
~John Mariani, author of The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink
“Many of us feel we know the regional dishes of Italy, yet this bible of a book broadens our horizons to the unexpected. It will teach you the traditions and ingredients of Italy and an understanding of Italians’ approach to cooking—a book to truly treasure.”
~Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, The River Café
"If you’ve traveled in Italy, you’ve probably wondered why, say, pasta with chickpeas is made differently in towns 10 kilometers apart, or why you have never found that spice cake you loved in Terni anywhere else. That’s because Italian cooking isn’t just regional, it’s microregional as La Cucina proves to fascinating effect. This book packs in so many recipes there’s no room for bucolic back stories, photos or detailed instructions…but what delicious recipes you’ll find…picking and preparing dishes at random will prove an enjoyable game for winter’s day."
~New York Times Book Review
"La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy (Rizzoli, 2009) is a masterpiece of Italian cooking, compiled by the founders of the Italian Academy of Cuisine. It's an essential addition to any cook's library with 2,000 recipes."
~Saveur
"Try to cook your way through one of these books. Bigger is better with new cookbook trend."
~The Associated Press
"The book is absurdly comprehensive…"
~Time Out New York
"La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy (Rizzoli; 928 pages; $45). More than 2,000 recipes from all over Italy, collected a half century ago by cultural preservationists and published here for the first time in English. The recipes are neatly organized and identified by region - there are dozens of recipes just for anchovies (yes, that is a good thing). Every home should have a copy."
~The San Francisco Chronicle
"The book reads that way, familial and familiar, idiosyncratic yet organized, and feels at times like spending a year in Italian kitchens, circa 1950. Nonni would approve."
~Foreword Magazine
About the Author
The Italian Academy of Cuisine was founded in 1953 in Milan to preserve the gastronomical heritage of Italy. Each year it hosts a number of education programs and awards prizes to leaders in gastronomy. Among its publications are a monthly magazine and a restaurant guide.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
61 of 63 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I hadn't really paid much attention to this book -- all the copies I'd seen were sold shrink-wrapped, and I'm not keen on dropping lots of money on a book I'm not at least somewhat familiar with. "La Cucina" hadn't gotten a lot of press, but it's certainly difficult to miss on the shelf, so when I did finally get around to flipping through an unwrapped copy, I was sold on the spot.
There is nothing wrong with The Silver Spoon or La Marcella -- the Silver Spoon is bare-bones textwise but has astonishingly beautiful photography, and "Essentials" is more or less the Italian equivalent of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But both of those books focus largely on the commonalities of Italian cuisine; as any aficionado of Italian food knows, Italian cooking is highly regionalized, varying drastically from the Arab and Greek influences of southern Italy to the powerful flavors of central Italy (especially Rome, Tuscany, and Emilia-Romagna) to the Germanic, Slavic, and French influences of northern Italy. It's reasonably easy to find good books on the individual regions, but efforts such as the usually reliable Claudia Roden's the Food of Italy: Region by Region tend to fall flat by virtue of having to cover everything at once.... Read more ›
There is nothing wrong with The Silver Spoon or La Marcella -- the Silver Spoon is bare-bones textwise but has astonishingly beautiful photography, and "Essentials" is more or less the Italian equivalent of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But both of those books focus largely on the commonalities of Italian cuisine; as any aficionado of Italian food knows, Italian cooking is highly regionalized, varying drastically from the Arab and Greek influences of southern Italy to the powerful flavors of central Italy (especially Rome, Tuscany, and Emilia-Romagna) to the Germanic, Slavic, and French influences of northern Italy. It's reasonably easy to find good books on the individual regions, but efforts such as the usually reliable Claudia Roden's the Food of Italy: Region by Region tend to fall flat by virtue of having to cover everything at once.... Read more ›
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
By J.R.
Format:Hardcover
This book is similar to The Silver Spoon including a vast array of recipes (over 900 pages!) but La Cucina provides the history and background of most recipes, along with a tag telling you from where in Italy the recipe originated. There are also anecdotes aoute traditions and uses of the foods peppered throughout the book. Italy is a small country, but the cuisine is very different depending on the different regions. And there is a mind-boggling array of recipes here. I was in search of a particular cookie I had been given to sample by my Italian language teacher...I have looked everywhere for it without success. I did find it here. What I also like, in comparison to The Silver Spoon is that the recipes here are much more decriptive. There are no photographs, so you'll need to use your imagination. But the selection of recipes is very impressive.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
While I am not 100% satisfied, this is a great concoction of recipes organized in a new way. What I'm missing is at least some yummy images (there is absolutely none of any kind) and an alphabetical index in addition to the 2 provided. As is, there is an index by region and another by main ingredient, but if you're after just something italian, you can't simply go to an index in an alphabetical order. I'm in a process of compiling my own as it is going to be invaluable.
As a big plus, with a ton of recipes there is no BS included, just plain, concise description of ingredients and how it goes together. But it also means that this is not for a beginning cook, yet I think everyone can count on finding a cooking inspiration here.
I love the fresh layout as well. This is just about as different as it gets in cookbooks.
.....
As a side note: another reviewer cannot find classic "bolognese sauce" I can't either, which only adds to my above point of the need for an alphabetical index. I actually don't think there is "bolognese" in this one. While considered by many a classic, it has been the most bastardized meat sauce in culinary history. As such it may no longer fall within the fine Italian cuisine category. I'm just guessing here, but truth be told someone ought to go to jail for letting this sauce become a sour point of Italian cuisine
As a big plus, with a ton of recipes there is no BS included, just plain, concise description of ingredients and how it goes together. But it also means that this is not for a beginning cook, yet I think everyone can count on finding a cooking inspiration here.
I love the fresh layout as well. This is just about as different as it gets in cookbooks.
.....
As a side note: another reviewer cannot find classic "bolognese sauce" I can't either, which only adds to my above point of the need for an alphabetical index. I actually don't think there is "bolognese" in this one. While considered by many a classic, it has been the most bastardized meat sauce in culinary history. As such it may no longer fall within the fine Italian cuisine category. I'm just guessing here, but truth be told someone ought to go to jail for letting this sauce become a sour point of Italian cuisine
23 of 33 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Investigate this book further before you buy: This is a very specialised book, certainly not for most people
March 28, 2011
By Jackal
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Please don't hit negative feedback because my review isn't so positive. With this book I would urge you to do more research before you buy. Some will like it, but others will not like it.
This 900 page book, without pictures, is targeted towards a niche that really is interested in regional Italian cuisine. And I'm not talking about the reader that loves Tuscan or Sicilian food. This book isn't teaching you about regional cuisine. The recipes are ordered in categories: antipasti, pasta, fish, vegetables, etc. and not per region. The book was originally written in 2003 for an Italian audience. I am not at all familiar with the organisation that have produced the book. Sounds a bit like a "fake" organisation.
Since the regional origin of each recipe is just listed adjacent to the recipe, you don't really learn anything about what characterize the different regions. What you get is around 2,000 regional recipes, presumably this covers a lot of all Italian cooking. Nothing more, nothing less. Very many of the recipes are very simple, like stuffed mullet, pasta with mint, etc. I wonder why these have been included and how their provenance would have been determined. I think many of the recipes are just added to increase the number of pages. The number of ingredients in each recipe is quite low, maybe five on average. The book is not bad, but don't expect to find hidden regional gems of recipes. They might exist in the book, but they would very much be hidden among all the other recipes. The book is absolutely not bad, but it is targeted to a niche audience. I just want to be clear about this if you decide to buy the book.
This 900 page book, without pictures, is targeted towards a niche that really is interested in regional Italian cuisine. And I'm not talking about the reader that loves Tuscan or Sicilian food. This book isn't teaching you about regional cuisine. The recipes are ordered in categories: antipasti, pasta, fish, vegetables, etc. and not per region. The book was originally written in 2003 for an Italian audience. I am not at all familiar with the organisation that have produced the book. Sounds a bit like a "fake" organisation.
Since the regional origin of each recipe is just listed adjacent to the recipe, you don't really learn anything about what characterize the different regions. What you get is around 2,000 regional recipes, presumably this covers a lot of all Italian cooking. Nothing more, nothing less. Very many of the recipes are very simple, like stuffed mullet, pasta with mint, etc. I wonder why these have been included and how their provenance would have been determined. I think many of the recipes are just added to increase the number of pages. The number of ingredients in each recipe is quite low, maybe five on average. The book is not bad, but don't expect to find hidden regional gems of recipes. They might exist in the book, but they would very much be hidden among all the other recipes. The book is absolutely not bad, but it is targeted to a niche audience. I just want to be clear about this if you decide to buy the book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Expected something different
This book came in a timely manner, well packaged, no damage. I was not happy with this book, however. Read more
Published 13 days ago by Margie Willey
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a cookbook!
I love Italian cooking. This book is great the way it is divided and how it identifies each recipe by region. I am already enjoying reading about the ingredients and techniques. Read more
Published 1 month ago by antiquebabe
4.0 out of 5 stars
An authoritative compilation.
This is sort of an encyclopedia of Italian local cooking….very useful to consult for ideas and traditional recipes. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Gardiner R. Mccauley
5.0 out of 5 stars
La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy
A BIG addition to my Italian cookbook collection. I bought two and will give the second as a gift. This is a huge book packed with great information.
Published 3 months ago by J. George
5.0 out of 5 stars
A treasure trove of old recipes and lore
A fun read for any cooking book enthusiast. The index is a bit odd, but that adds to the fun of finding the most unusual recipes with the most unusual ingredients (by 21st century... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Michael Haerting
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chock full of excellent recipes!
We bought this for our son and he and his wife are trying are using it already. It is a huge book!
Published 5 months ago by Jeanette Fatigati
5.0 out of 5 stars
OK!
Libro in perfette condizioni e corrispondente nel contenuto alla descrizione. I tempi di consegna sono stati quelli preannunciati al momento dell'acquistoLa Cucina: The Regional... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Rosa Maria
5.0 out of 5 stars
BIG HIT!
This was a Christmas gift for my son and he was THRILLED! Italian heritage and enjoyed trying cuisines from different areas.
Published 5 months ago by A. Mazzini
2.0 out of 5 stars
not the best
Too many recipes with hard-to-find meat. Too much repetition. And, frankly, I wouldn't eat half of what's on offer here.
Published 6 months ago by marshmallow
5.0 out of 5 stars
Most complete cookbook EVER!!
This very thick book covers Italy in it's entirety so far as local cuisine goes. I've tried many of the recipes and have found them easy to follow and very tasty. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Gina Zetmeir-Stephens
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