Customer Reviews

A Ligurian Kitchen: Recipes And Tales from the Italian Riviera

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

really ligurian, really good

The reviewer who claimed this book is "not really Ligurian" seems not to have paid attention. In her introduction, the author is straightforward about the fact that "the recipes in this book don't add up to an encyclopedia of Ligurian cuisine.

"It's not my intention to present you with a comprehensive collection of dishes from the region," she tells us. "Instead, I want to take you on a more intimate, personal journey...."

She does exactly that. It's a book about the spirit of a place. The author captures that spirit well.

That said, it's just plain wrong to say that the recipes here aren't Ligurian in character. I've travelled in Liguria, and while it's true the author offers her own personal interpretation of certain classics (any good cookbook author does that), and in some cases adapts ingredients for what's available in US markets (which I consider a service to readers like me, since the book was published in the US), I've eaten many of these very dishes in restaurants throughout the Ligurian coast and entroterra.

Not only are the recipes here spot-on in their invocation of the region, they're also accessible to a home cook like me. The book is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to cook from.

Laura Giannatempo's LIGURIAN KITCHEN: RECIPES AND TALES FROM THE ITALIAN RIVIERA is the fifth and newest title in the Hippocrene Books regional Italian cookbook series and narrows the focus to the Ligurian region, blending photos by Michael Piazza with the author's memories of her home. Liguria is a narrow strip of coastal land in northwest Italy: recipes there are filled with dishes you won't find in your usual Italian cookbook - such as Herb Ravioli with Walnut Cream Sauce - and are accompanied by sidebars of information and history. A centerfold of color photos adds inspiration but it's really the unique dishes and stories which stand out in a cookbook that is enthusiastically recommended for any dedicated Italian cuisine collection.

Giannatempo mixes stories from her childhood summers with reflections on the region's food and what it meant to her family. The stories are full of funny characters and a certain nostalgia, all tied to a strong (and inviting) sense of place. The recipes are clear & easy to follow (who knew focaccia could be such a simple thing?) and though some of the favors may be unfamiliar to American readers, that's part of the fun. A great combination.

I'm not a "food and wine snob" as reviewer R. A. White describes himself, but I do have a lot of cooksbooks and I have been to a few of the better cooking schools (like the CIA in Napa, the Cordon Bleu in Paris and the ICE in Manhattan). I've also been cooking professionally and as an amateur since I was 11, some 50+ years ago. I've travelled extensively in Europe and North America. I'm not bragging, but I am establishing some credentials to undegird my opinion of this book, and this is a pretty darn good book about an under-appreciated area of Italy from a cuisine viewpoint. The "tales" part of the book help to paint in some background both of the author and of the area. In my experience, snobs are usually people who pay too much, get too little and complain about everything. Next time, R. A., read the book first, then write a review that shows that you can see both the good and the not so good. A little cheese with your whine?

Marlena De Blasi's Regional Foods of Northern Italy was an interesting book for me -- a generally good tour of northern Italian food, hurt by a gratingly flowery writing style like a failed Tessa Kiros impression. Curiously, however, De Blasi left out two regions in the area claiming that they basically didn't fit; the formerly Austrian Tirol was one, and Liguria, whose food is similar in many ways to Southern Italy. Laura Giannatempo has remedied two of those problems; the third, well, that's what Lidia Bastianich is for.

And indeed there's certainly no lack of red sauce in this book, much of which is used in Liguria's seafood dishes as well as with pasta. But there's plenty more as well -- focaccia, for example, long before its rise to current popularity, was the quintessential bread of the Italian Riviera (spilling over into France's fougasse, of course). But you can't, for example, have a book about Ligurian cooking without pesto, and Giannatempo helpfully includes a sidebar on Genovese basil. And the recipes she chooses are a bit more upscale than southern Italy -- fresh pasta is everywhere, and her choices of recipe have a certain elegance that no doubt comes from Liguria's proximity to France. Her remniscences are, as is too often the case, a bit out-of-time (most seem to be set in the late 70s and early 80s), but they avoid the excessive floweriness that's all too easy for a memoirist to fall into. Despite minimal color photography, the black and white material in the rest of the book is beautiful.

I'm still a big fan of Hippocrene's cookbooks for providing books of cuisines that most publishers can't be bothered with. Fortunately, they don't sell more mainstream cuisines out (honestly, Ligurian food isn't particularly far off the beaten path even for Italian regional), and Laura Giannatempo has done a very good job on this one.

Very good book; lots of good and unusual recipes and interesting insights about Liguria from a native from the Italian Riviera which is beautiful. Lovely photos, too. Recipes for corzetti were very good.

book is only ok I have thousands of cookbooks and this one is only fair