Customer Reviews

Naples at Table : Cooking in Campania

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a regular listener of Arthur Schwartz's daily radio program and I anxiously awaited this book's publication. My family are from small towns in the Benevento area of Campagna and Arthur's recipes are the familiar food that I grew up with. He is the only person I know of who wrote about "Eggs in Purgatory". This was a regular Friday night supper in the days when meat was not allowed. All of these wonderful peasant dishes have now been "discovered" by people who are interested in healthy food. Our people ate them because they were inexpensive and I think Italians can make anything taste good! Bravo Arthur, you have done a great job!

I have lots of Italian cookbooks that I don't cook out of -- they're more like reference works. Forgive me Bugialli et al. But Arthur Schwartz is truly a cook's friend. I have all his cookbooks. His recipes are not only delicious. THEY WORK! They are extremely cookable. Besides Arthur is a doll. He is so human and so likable. This book is like a trip to Italy with your best friend. Great commentary, easy to follow recipes, delicious food. What more could you ask from an Italian cookbook?

This new cookbook covers the cuisine of Naples and Campania, the cuisine which most Italian-American food is based. I am especially excited about this book because Mr. Schwartz has done a magnificent job of capturing the essence of the delicious cuisine from the Campania Region of Italy. I recognize many of the recipes from the days of watching my grandmother prepare many marvelous meals. Happily there are many recipes in the book that look outstanding with which I am not familiar. I can't wait to prepare many of these.

It was especially encouraging to read many of these beautifully explained recipes that were apparently carefully researched and fully tested until the author was sure that they would "work" as intended. His explanation of "marinara sauce and genovese sauce" alone were worth the price of the book for me.

It is one of the best cookbooks that I know of about the cuisine of Italy which is so highly Regionalized. Marcella Hazan's books used to be my favorites but these have been replaced with "Naples at Table". There are enough great sounding recipes to keep me busy preparing them for the next several weeks.

An added bonus is that the author has done a commendable job in connecting the interesting history of the Region with its cuisine.

It will be a present to many of my friends from me especially for those whose forebears came from Campania.

Thoroughly liked this book. Not only great recipes, but written with wit and great story telling. Just the two recipes for Italian Liqueurs, strawberry, LIQUORE DI FRAGOLE and lemon, LEMONCELLO, are worth the price of the book. I was served Lemoncello in Italy last year and was so impressed with it I brought some back with me. Well! Let me tell you, Arthur's recipe, while so simple, "KNOCKS THE SOCKS" off the bottled stuff I carted back. Arthur Schwartz proves with this book that good Italian cooking doesn't require you to slave over a hot stove or in a hot kitchen all day. His BOCCONCINI DI RANA PESCATRICE ALLA MEDITERRANEAN, (Chunks of Monkfish, Mediterranean-Style) takes longer to say than to cook. And it is wonderful. I have a lot of cookbooks, and love using them. This one will be always find its way to the top of the heap.

I checked this book out of the library, then decided I needed to own it! I shared it with a friend, who bought it and she shared it with her brother, who bought it. After showing it to my next door neighbor, she bought it, and her Mom now wants her own copy. The recipies are truly authentic with simple ingredients: Eggs in Purgatory, Baked Pasta, Savory Pasta and Cheese Pie, sauteed mussels with chickpea cream, and lots more. I own tons of cookbooks, and this is truly a "got to have". Don't be confused by the author's name, he gathered these recipes from cooks in Campania and includes interesting stories before each. A truly great Italian cook book!

`Naples at Table' by Arthur Schwartz is another addition to that excellent collection of books on regional Italian cooking by, for example, Lynne Rossetto Kasper on Emilia-Romagna in `The Splendid Table', David Downie on Lazio in `Cooking the Roman Way', and Lydia Bastianich on Istria in `La Cucina di Lydia'. Even allowing for the fact that there are a number of only fair titles dealing, especially with Tuscany, the crop of books on Italy's regional cuisine is truly marvelous.

While my overall impression of the book was very good from the moment I opened it, I knew I was on to something when I encountered Herr Schwartz' statement that in Campania, cooks rarely use both garlic and onions in the same dish. This is something I have never heard (or do not remember hearing) or reading, even from my guiding star of Italian cookery, Mario Batali on his show, `Molto Mario'.

Unlike many of these books, even very good ones, the author takes the time to give us a history of Naples and Campania. While I can't say for certain, there is a hint here that part of the reason tomatoes found a home in the cuisine of Naples is based on the fact that Campania, Sicily, and other parts of southern Italy were ruled by the Spanish in the 200 years following the importing of new foods, including tomatoes, from the new world by the Spanish. I suspect the rich growing conditions for tomatoes in Campania had as much or more to do with the situation, but the potential connection is a rich subject of speculation.

I also get a strong sense of believability in Schwartz' description of this cuisine based on his statement that the residents of Campania rarely think of themselves as natives of this Italian governmental region. Rather, they think of themselves as residents of the smaller province, city, or island such as Naples, Avellino, Benevento, Caserta, Salerno, Amalfi, Capri, and Ischia.

This is the cuisine on which practically all `Italian-American' cooking is based, since most Italian immigrants to America were from Campania, Sicily, and other parts of southern Italy. It is also true that two of the most popular types of dishes in the world, dried semolina pasta and pizza, were created in Naples. Unlike other good books on other regions, Schwartz also goes into a lot of the history of these and other types of dishes. For example, his treatment of `puttanesca' is virtually the only one that gives at least two different perfectly reasonable explanations for the source of the name.

The book is laid out in very traditional chapters, covering antipasti and fried foods; classic sauces; pizza and savory breads; soups; pasta; cheese and eggs; fish and seafood; meat and poultry; vegetables; and desserts. His pasta chapter even includes two different recipes for the famous timballo baked pasta pie, which made such a big impression in Stanley Tucci's movie, `Big Night'. The best thing about his recipes is that they are not the same as the two in Lynne Rossetto Kaspar's `The Italian Country Table', although there are strong family resemblences. The most interesting thing about his `Timballo di Tagliolini is that it has a pastry rather than a pasta crust.

There is not a single dish I associate with Naples that cannot be found in this book. There is even a great recipe for `Torta di ricotta Gregoriano', the southern Italian take on cheesecake, based on ricotta and including citrus flavorings.

While this book does have a few heartwarming stories about convivial dinners with Italian friends, this book is much more about business, and it is easily one of the best three to five books I have seen on a particular Italian provincial cuisine.

Highly recommended.

I have a large cookbook collection and always read Amazon reviews before I purchase another one to see how home cooks rate the book. I wasn't going to get this one - silly me - until I read a review in Amazon. NAPLES AT TALBLE is really wonderful. The tomato sauce from canned tomatoes is worth the price of the book alone. I don't understand how tiny changes can make such a difference, but I made the sauce and used it on ravioli, and it was fabulous. I cannot wait to cook my way through the whole book. If Marcella Hazan is your favorite - and why wouldn't she be - add this to your collection and expand your repertoire.

As italian cookbooks go, this is as good as it gets. The authenticity of this book is unrivaled and unmatched. I ordered this book a couple days before my wife and I left for a vacation to Naples and the Amalfi Coast. I was so excited to see this book waiting at my front door when we returned. Reading the book made me feel as if we never left. I had been struggling to find the right pizza dough for the last couple years and have finally found one I'm happy with in "Naples at Table". Making a sponge before assembling the rest of the ingredients seemed to be the answer to a soft and supple dough. To the "Pretty, but None too Useful" reviewer, what book are you reading? The so-called "chatty nature" of this book is one of it's strong points. It's essential to understanding the wonderful nature of true Neapolitan cooking. The recipes are not hard to follow. They're just the opposite, well written and as easy to follow as any cookbook I own. This is a well researched book and the recipes are dead-on accurate. If you're a true fan of real Neapolitan Cuisine, do yourself a favor and order this book, you won't be disappointed.

This is my favorite, number 1 Italian cookbook. Italian cooking is a real combination of incredibly easy, effortless cooking versus labor intensive works of love. This book has it both. Being that I am slightly lazy in nature, I've pretty much tried all the easy recipes... and they have all turned out so incredibly delicious with really very minimal work and with very few ingredients. Because my family comes from the obscure city of Avella, I'm thoroughly enjoying recipes that my grandmother once cooked. I am grateful to the author for producing a book of recipes that I thought I'd never see or taste at home again. My favorite recipes are: Pasta e Lenticchie (Pasta and Lentils), Lingunie all'Amalfitana (Linguine with Walnuts and Anchovies), Vermicelli alla Campolattaro (Spaghetti with Tuna and Anchovy sauce), Frittata (flat omelet), Zucchine a Scapece (Marinated Fried Zucchini, Scialatielli (pasta), etc. etc. etc. Mangia, mangia!

As a Neapolitan I was thrilled to find this book and see the authentic regional dishes of Canpagna. The recipies are just part of the thrill of reading this masterpiece. The chamter introductions and sidebars are great fun to read and learn about the foods I grew up with. The recipies are easy to follow and absolutely authentic. This book makes it easy to enjoy the "Napolitano Experience" Bravo and Mille Grazie. (Well done, and Many Thanks)