My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking from Italy's Undiscovered South [Hardcover]

Rosetta Costantino (Author), Janet Fletcher (Author), Shelley Lindgren (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2010

Recipes for easily accessible, fresh-from-the-garden Italian food from a Calabrian native and "bountiful good cook" (The Atlantic).

At the tip of Italy's "boot" lies Calabria. It is a beautiful, mountainous region populated by fishermen and small farmers. Rosetta Costantino grew up in this rugged landscape—her father a shepherd and wine maker and her mother his tireless assistant.

When her family immigrated to California, they re-created a little Calabria on their property, cooking with eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers from their garden, fresh ricotta made from scratch, and pasta fashioned by hand. A frugal people, Calabrians are master preservers, transforming fresh figs into jam, canning fresh tuna in oil, and sun-drying peppers for the winter. Now Rosetta shares her family's story and introduces readers to the fiery simplicity of Calabrian food. The first cookbook of a little-known region of Italy, My Calabria celebrates the richness of the region's landscape and the allure of its cuisine. This is a cookbook for our time: a reminder of how ingenious and resourceful cooks can create a gorgeous local cuisine. 100 color photographs

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Recipes such as sagne chine (Calabrese lasagne), vruocculi ca' savuzuizza (sausage and broccoli rabe), and pipi 'mpajanati (sweet pepper fritters) highlight this brilliant, comprehensive cookbook by Calabrian-born Costantino (who now resides in Northern California) and Fletcher (cookbook author and San Francisco Chronicle columnist). And while the region is hardly undiscovered, as the subtitle suggests (there have been several book in recent years on the region, and it's a favorite vacation spot for northern Europeans), Costantino certainly digs deep into the cuisine, highlighting authentic recipes along with an insightful narrative. She offers recipes for pane calabrese, a thick-crusted bread with a soft, tangy middle that the region takes pride in: homemade ricotta cheese and swordfish rolls with breadcrumb stuffing. She offers explanations on Calabrese meats (soppressatta, spalla, salsiccia, 'nduja), cheeses (butirro, caciocavallo), pastas (cannaruozzoli, scilatelli, and the Arbëresh, or Albanian-influenced, couscous), as well as an entire chapter on preserves, such as fresh fig jam; mushrooms in oil with hot peppers (ubiquitous throughout Calabria), fennel and garlic; and a liqueur made from mandarin oranges. Costantino's cookbook offers home cooks a delightful journey along the toe of Italy's boot. (Nov.)
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Review

Starred Review. Recipes such as sagne chine (Calabrese lasagne), vruocculi ca' savuzuizza (sausage and broccoli rabe), and pipi 'mpajanati (sweet pepper fritters) highlight this brilliant, comprehensive cookbook... Costantino certainly digs deep into the cuisine, highlighting authentic recipes along with an insightful narrative.... Costantino's cookbook offers home cooks a delightful journey along the toe of Italy's boot.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (November 8, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393065162
• ISBN-13: 978-0393065169
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 1.2 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > European > Italian

More About the Author

Cookbook author and teacher Rosetta Costantino was born and raised in Verbicaro, a small wine-producing hill town in Calabria, at the southern tip of the Italian peninsula.
Her parents shaped her connection to food and the land. Her father, a master cheesemaker and winemaker, tended the family's olive groves, vineyards and the farm's goats and sheep. Almost all their food came from their property or the nearby Mediterranean. Her mother and grandmothers knew how to live from the land, how to grow vegetables and preserve them for the winter months, and how to make bread and friselle from scratch. They knew how to make pasta with only flour and water and shape it every which way, even rolling it around a knitting needle to make the famous Calabrian fusilli.
As a child, she learned from them. Rosetta remembers taking wheat to the mill, returning home coated from head to toe in white flour. She watched them press olives into oil, and inserted strips of tomatoes into the glass bottles they used to preserve them.

The family moved to the Bay Area in California when Rosetta was 14 years old, and though they settled into the fast pace of life there, they kept their traditions. They continued to grow their own produce, raise rabbits, make their own ricotta, and cure their own salsiccia Calabrese with spicy peperoncino from their garden. Even after she earned a chemical-engineering degree at the University of California Berkeley and went on to a successful career in Silicon Valley, Rosetta retained her love of her family's traditional foodways.

In 2001, as a stay-at-home mom, Rosetta returned to her roots in the kitchen, honing skills learned from her mother and grandmothers. A 2004 San Francisco Chronicle story on the Costantino family, "Calabria from Scratch - Foods of Calabria," produced an overwhelming response that inspired her to venture into teaching the cooking of her native land.

"I realized there is a great interest in the foods of our region," Rosetta says, "and that I must share what I was so lucky to have grown up with, so that the dishes and recipes will not be lost."

Calabrian cooking is yet unexplored. The region is off the beaten path and the best foods are found in farmers' homes, not fancy restaurants. "My goal," says Rosetta, "is to introduce dishes that would be served to guests in a home in Southern Italy..." and, it should be added, to the Calabrian ways of turning fresh, simple fare into pure satisfaction.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! An authentic & excellent cookbook for Calabrian cooking. October 27, 2010

By M. Dali

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been searching for a cookbook and travel book with Calabrian roots for so long. Many books are 'Southern Italian' but only delve into the well-known Neopolitan recipies. I am a first-generation Italian-American, whose parents immigrated from Calabria so when I saw these recipes in print I almost cried. Very authentic and fun to see the dialect in there too. The history, stories, recipes and photos are outstanding. Thank you for writing this book. Finalmente! p.s. note to author on the 'Peaches' dessert, you can get Alkermes liquor flavoring in the states, Torre Products in New York carries it. I believe they are in Brooklyn and ship. And if you are reading this wondering if you should buy this book, don't hesitate. I bought a few copies for family to pass on our roots and recipes.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Authentic, comprehensive, and simply gorgeous November 8, 2010

By Michelle Fabio, Bleeding Espresso

Format:Hardcover

As some background, I am an American of Calabrian heritage who has been living in my ancestors' village in Calabria since 2003; I received this book for review on my blog, Bleeding Espresso.

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Rosetta Costantino was born in Calabria and moved to America with her family at age 14. Although they left behind much of what was familiar to them, the Costantino family never lost their culinary traditions -- and now Rosetta shares them with us in My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking from Italy's Undiscovered South.

When paging through My Calabria, you feel like an honorary member of the family at the table as you learn about how Rosetta's father recreated their Calabrian garden in Oakland, California; how various members of the family make the same dish; and also the 11 ingredients every Calabrian pantry should have on hand.

Rosetta also shares information about the historical and cultural influences on Calabrian cuisine and lifestyle, so aside from being a wonderful collection of recipes (150) that includes appetizers through dessert, My Calabria is simply a wonderful resource book on the region -- you're getting so much more than a cookbook here.

The recipes themselves are authentic as they come and easy to follow -- one of the best things about Calabrian cooking is that it's user-friendly as it uses so few ingredients -- and the book is just gorgeous. There are plenty of full-page and other sized color photos throughout, not only of recipes but also of various sights from around Calabria.

From a personal standpoint as someone who has been making Calabrian food ever since I could cook -- first from my grandmother's recipes and now also from my mother-in-law's -- I give this book five very full espresso cups out of five. Rosetta is a wonderful tour guide through this region's food, history, and culture, and I highly recommend My Calabria for anyone who is interested in Calabria, southern Italy, or southern Italian cuisine.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Cookbook from one of Italy's Most Rustic Regions November 3, 2010

By Cherrye Moore

Format:Hardcover

I've lived in Calabria since 2006 and was sent a copy of My Calabria to review for my website, My Bella Vita. I wrote a review there, as well as a few other sites, but since people come here to buy the book-and I always read Amazon reviews before making my own purchases-I wanted to write something here, as well.

It is hard to find reliable English-language information on Calabria and I loved that this cookbook was more than just a collection of recipes. Yes, it is chock-full of authentic Calabrian cooking, homemade pasta, sauces, meat, fish, veggie and dessert dishes, but it also has the history of various places in Calabria, bright, vivid photos (of more than just the food) and it is written in an easy, conversational tone that makes for easy reading.

If you are an Italophile or fan of Calabria, you'll enjoy this cookbook.