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5.0 out of 5 stars
Evoking Roman Cooking. Very Good First Italian Cookbook, May 7, 2004
This review is from: Rome, At Home: The Spirit of La Cucina Romana in Your Own Kitchen (Hardcover)
This is the third "la cucina Romana" cookbook I will have reviewed in the last six (6) months. The first two were `Cooking the Roman Way' by David Downie and `In a Roman Kitchen: Timeless Recipes from the Eternal City' by Jo Bettoja. Both have been published within the last two years. A Roman cookbook certainly seems to be a growth industry.
The most important thing to know about this book is that it is more different from the other two titles than these earlier volumes are from one another. `Rome, at Home' by Suzanne Dunaway is a chronicle of the dishes the author cooks in her home in either Rome or Los Angeles. Being only the `Spirit of la cucina Romana' and not the letter of the cuisine, the recipes have a habit of wandering all over the map of Italy. The intent and the content of the two earlier books is to more carefully document Roman dishes as offered by specific restaurante and trattoria in Rome itself.
This book includes almost every classic Roman recipe I know, including
Cipolline in Agrodolce (Little onions in sweet and sour sauce)
Carciofi alla Giudia (Artichokes fried in the Jewish Manner)
Spaghetti alla Carbonara (Spaghetti with Pancetta and Eggs)
Pizza Bianca (White Pizza)
Gnocchi alla Romana (Semolina Dumplings)
Trippa alla Romana (Tripe in Tomato Sauce)
What is surprising is that the book does not include the very Roman dish `Saltimbocca alla Romana'. In its place are several dishes with origins in other parts of Italy such as Ragu Bolognese, Pizza Napoletana, and Ossobuco in Bianco (Milanese).
As this is a book on how the author cooks at home, the recipes follow the well-known Italian culinary practice of buying the very best, freshest ingredients, and doing as little as possible to them to bring them to the table. This is not to say the recipes are overly simple. The author quotes Einstein on this point when he said that the object is to make things as simple as possible, but no simpler. To this end, the author does not skimp on any steps that may surprise conventional wisdom. In a recipe for Caponata (Sweet and Sour Braised Vegetables) for example, she takes the time to salt cut eggplant to draw out some moisture and bitterness. I do sense, however, a few assumptions being made about the cook's knowledge of cooking, as I find no warning against burning the garlic when sautéing, as in the recipe for Spaghetti alla Puttanesca.
The book's contents are organized in the same manner as almost every other traditional Italian cookbook with chapters on:
Antipasti
Primi, with Minestre, Pasta, and Risotto
Secondi, with Pesce (Fish), Pollame (Poultry), Carne (Meat), and Cacciagione (Game)
Contorni (Side Dishes)
Pane, Focaccia, e Pizza (Bread, Flatbread, and Pizza)
Dolci (Sweets)
Note that the author's primary vocation is bread baking, so the chapter on breads is not simply filler.
The glue which holds the book together is the story of how the author originally fell in love with the city of Rome, how she met her husband in Rome, the tempo of her life when in Rome, and her approximation of the world of Roman cuisine based on materials available in southern California. Like many other travelogue cookbooks such as Patricia Wells new `The Provence Cookbook', this volume includes a list of the addresses, telephone numbers, and précis of local Roman eateries and food shops. These bits of lore can put you in the clever little Food Network promo that has a NY foodie ordering food to go from a restaurant in China. The author breathes some Roman air into the anecdotes by giving proverbs, phrases, and words not only in Italian, but also in the local Roman dialect. Thankfully, all local linguistic color is translated into English.
One symptom of how this book is less academically inclined is the fact that the index is definitely not bilingual, unlike the two earlier books. This means that when I tried to find Dunaway's recipe for `Cipolline in Agrodolce', I had to do a little mental translation, as Dunaway's index only had an entry for `Cipolline in sweet and sour sauce'. This probably means absolutely nothing to the American home cook who is not trying to compare three cookbooks. In spite of the liberal seasoning with both the Italian and Roman language, this book is organized entirely in English. All recipes are titled in Italian, but consistently subtitled and indexed in English. Another small lapse may be the absence of eggs, celery, and mint from the author's otherwise very good list of Roman ingredients. Eggs pervade the recipes in many unusual ways and celery and mint are famously abundant Roman ingredients.
This book successfully evokes the sights and smells and sounds of the Roman market in words, with a friendly assist from watercolors of simple Roman scenes and food painted by the author herself. I am no fan of photographs of food in cookbooks. Rampant food styling tricks and fuzzy photography give no guarantee that you are seeing anything close to what you may actually make at home. I would much rather have my saltimbocca recipe back.
With a list price under $30, this is an excellent first book on Italian cookery. The recipes are authentically Italian, based on ingredients available to almost all Americans, wrapped up in a successful evocation of the Roman culinary environment. As such, it is as good as or better than Mario Batali's `Simple Italian Food', a much more appropriate paradigm than the two scholarly treatment of Roman cuisine cited above.
Highly recommended for simple ethnic cooking.
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