Many Beautiful Things: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa [Hardcover]

Vincent Schiavelli (Author), Santo Lipani (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2002

Vincent Schiavelli is known to most of us as a character actor who has appeared in such films as "Ghost, Man on the Moon," and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Schiavelli grew up in Brooklyn, speaking both Sicilian and English at home. Some of his earliest memories are of sitting at the kitchen table while his grandparents told stories of the life and the people they had left behind in Polizzi Generosa, a small city in the Madonie Mountains of Sicily.

As Schiavelli grew older, those stories, and the city about which they were told, took on a mythic quality. When he was nearly forty he made his first trip there, and what he found was more extraordinary than the "once upon a time" fables of his childhood.

In "Many Beautiful Things," Schiavelli invites readers to join him in discovering the people, culture, and food of the city that has, in essence, become his second home. Equal parts memoir and cookbook, it is the best of both. Schiavelli is an accomplished and elegant writer who evokes a foreign and often closed culture from a unique perspective: an outsider fluent in the language with still-strong familial ties.

The recipes -- which reflect the ancient influences of Greece, North Africa, and Spain -- are simple, rustic, and delicious, depending on local products and seasonal bounty. This is not your usual Southern Italian fare but a unique regional cuisine: Pumpkin Caponata, Ditali with Drowned Lettuce, Fried Ricotta Omelet, Potato Gratin with Bay Leaves, Almond Love Bites, Veal Shoulder Roasted with Marsala, and Baked Pasta with Almonds (rigatoni baked in a pork ragu with chopped toasted almonds) are just a few of the extraordinary dishes you'll find in this book,all of which can be reproduced by cooks with delectable results.

Schiavelli provides a comprehensive list of mail-order sources. And if you want to visit Polizzi Generosa, there's a guide on how to get there, where to stay, and where to eat. Illustrated with black-and-white line drawings by Polizzi's best known artist, Santo Lipani (who also happens to be an extraordinary cook), "Many Beautiful Things" is a feast, both culinary and literary.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As a popular character actor, Vincent Schiavelli's face is easily recognizable. But you'll look at this actor--and serious cook--in a new light once you lose yourself in Many Beautiful Things, a compilation of personal stories, with more than 75 recipes, about his visits to a small hilltop town in Sicily called Polizzi Generosa, the birthplace of his grandparents. Schiavelli is embraced as a long-lost by the Polizzani, and they readily share their local legends, town gossip, and the trials and tribulations of living in a place far removed from the rest of Italy. As a result, when he introduces us to the quirky characters who populate the village he does it with a rare sensitivity, and real respect. You'll cry for Turiddu Lavanca, the lovesick forager; laugh with Za Momo, a friend's grandmother; and wish you could taste something, anything, made by Pino Agliata, Schiavelli's favorite pastry chef.

In Polizzi, life revolves around the table, and as Schiavelli tells us, "culinary expertise is divided into ... those who cook and eat, and those who don't cook but still eat heartily." As Schiavelli weaves his tales, slipping in mouth-watering descriptions of dishes like Potato Gratin with Bay Leaves, Zucchini Flowers Stuffed with Bechamel, and Pumpkin Caponata, and sweets such as Almond Love Bites and Almond Nougat, you'll find yourself skipping to the end of each chapter to make sure the recipes are there. Take this book to read on vacation, and then find a place for it in your kitchen. --Leora Y. Bloom

From Library Journal

Film actor Shiavelli is also an accomplished writer and chef; he's the author of Bruculinu, America, about growing up in a Sicilian American family in Brooklyn, and Papa Andrea's Table, featuring his grandfather's recipes. Polizzi Generosa is the tiny town in Sicily where his grandparents grew up, and Schiavelli's latest book is the story, with recipes, of his ongoing love affair with this ancient village. He first visited it in the late 1980s and has returned many times since. He writes romantically about that first visit and then about a later trip with his young son; about the independent people of Polizzi, who welcomed him as one of their own; about Sicilian history, myths, and folklore; and, of course, about the food. Recommended for most collections.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (October 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743215281
• ISBN-13: 978-0743215282
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #891,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "ManyBeatutiful Things" Beautiful book, October 27, 2002

By 

"4para" (Seattle WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Many Beautiful Things: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa (Hardcover)

The author/actor Vincent Schiavelli has done it again. His latest cookbook with stories and recipes is a real treat, not only for the tummy but for the soul too. The recipes I have tasted so far are wonderfully delicious. The stories are so touching to the heart that I found myself teary eyed over the pasta sauce. This beautiful book should be in everyone's cook library, and it can hold it's place in any other library as well. Bravo Mr. Schiavelli for another great installment of Sicilian cuisine and culture.
I highly recommend this book. 5 stars in my book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many Beautiful Things - An appropriate title, December 31, 2002

By 

Charlie Sausa (Howard Beach, New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Many Beautiful Things: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa (Hardcover)

Every once in a while a book comes along that doesn't try to be dark and mysterious, or technical and scientific, or highfalutin in any way. Instead this book simply wants to tell some pleasant stories. Many Beautiful Things is a book that does just this, it shares great stories (and recipes) in a simple, yet unforgettable way.
In his new book, Vincent Schiavelli takes us along on his journey to Polizzi Generosa, a quaint Sicilian town. Along the way, we witness the natural beauty of Polizzi; meet its people, who find joy and happiness in the simple lives they lead; and taste Polizzi's exquisite culinary creations (don't worry, Mr. Schiavelli gives you the recipes for them all)!
Although Mr. Schiavelli has successfully taken on many roles as an actor, in Many Beautiful Things, he takes on a role in which he is equally successful - that of a masterful writer. Schiavelli brings to life the landscape, people, and food of Polizzi through vivid images that seem to come more from the strokes of an artist's brush than from an author's pen.
"...[S]emolina bread toasted in the wood-burning pizza oven and topped with the ripest chopped tomatoes mixed with fragrant fresh basil, and drizzled with local extra-virgin olive oil" makes a dish that is, basically, a typical "bruschetta" seem worthy of being displayed next to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre!
Those unfamiliar with Polizzi Generosa need only to read Schiavelli's words to understand what an incredible place it is; "Before us lay a mountain pasture, dotted with olive trees ...The room filled with clean, cold mountain air. It was scented with wild fennel, and bay laurel, and earth - rich, fertile earth."
Reading Many Beautiful Things seems to transport you to a different world where the only things important in life are helath, friends and family, and a good spread of food. This book is filled exactly with what the title says, "many beautiful things!" There is one problem, however, that you may have with this book after reading it - you won't know whether to hop a flight to Sicily or fire up the stove! Thanks Vincent for showing us "many beautiful things!"

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gentle Evocation of Sicilian Life and Food. Please Buy, February 22, 2004

By 

B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Many Beautiful Things: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa (Hardcover)

I happened to pick this book up while needing something to read on a traveling layover. I instantly recognized the name of the author and the size of the volume promised to add little to the weight of my baggage, so I chose it over the hundreds of other cookbooks at the out of town Barnes and Noble I happened to find in my travels.

In the back of my mind was the opinion that this was an exercise in exploitation of the actor's fame in movies and on the stage. Although Vincent Schiavelli has had relatively minor roles, they were in some major films such as `Amadeus' and `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and a major TV show, `Taxi'. The blurbs on the back cover from Martin Scorsese and Danny DeVito did nothing to change this prejudice. But here was also a blurb from Alice Waters. Not exactly your typical show business paison. Rather, a culinary heavyweight of the first Water (sic). The watercolor painting on the cover also enchanted me. Not exactly the sort of thing used by Patti LaBelle or Al Roker on their tie-in culinary efforts.

The first thing which gave the lie to my prejudice was the fact that the bio at the inside bottom of the dust jacket briefly mentions that Schiavelli is an actor and goes on to focus more on the fact that this is the fifth book he has written, all apparently on Sicilian / culinary topics.

This book is very much about both food and Sicily, specifically a small hilltop town in north central Sicily named Polizzi Generosa. The book opens with the story of the town's rather odd name. The town was founded in Roman times and the full name came to be in the thirteenth century. Read the book for all the spicy details. The relevance of the town to the author is that Schiavelli's family came from this town and some distant relatives still live there.

It took less than two pages to be hooked on the story in the book that provides a framework for the recipes. I often judge cookbooks by how interested I am in making the recipes after reading them. A comparable `gut level' criterion for non-cookbooks is how interested I am in reading other books by the same author. Schiavelli made me very interested in reading his earlier books. Unlike most other culinary memoir writers, Schiavelli also succeeded in my wanting to make the recipes in his book. Most of the recipes are absurdly simple and certainly inexpensive to make. The potato gratin recipe, for example, has immediately become my recipe of choice for this dish, avoiding all the headaches of dealing with curdling dairy products by replacing it with olive oil. This is Sicily, after all.

Not leaving things at that, Schiavelli adds significant value to the book by including a supplementary table of contents which list all recipes by category, since the primary table of contents is ordered more to events in the author's visits to Polizzi Generosa than to things culinary. The categories are Antipasti, First Courses (usually pasta), Second Courses (usually protein), One Course Meals (pastas with hearty ragu, for example), Side Dishes (conturni), desserts, and liquers.

The book is a true gem at a list price of $27. Given a reasonable discount, the book is a real treat. Highly recommended.