Italy in Small Bites (Hardcover)

by Carol Field (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Field’s well-researched and elegantly written cookbook on Italy’s merende (comparable to Spanish tapas and Greek meze), originally published in 1993, gets a new look and a new foreword to appeal to a new generation of readers. Merende, small midmorning or afternoon snacks, can be as simple as a wedge of cheese and a slice of bread, or as complex as the Pugliese merende called Puddhica, which comprises mussels, clams and octopus, sauteed with garlic and served alongside homemade focaccia. Several of Field’s merende could double as dinner-the Polenta con Baccala Mantecato (Polenta with Creamy Salt Cod) is rich and salty, a culinary heavyweight made from the dried cod formerly considered "a dish of the poor." Erbazzone (Spinach Pie), a "quintessential" springtime merenda that incorporates fresh spinach, eggs, pancetta and almost a cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano, is also very satisfying. On the lighter side, there’s a variety of tempting crostini topped with everything from sweet peppers to olive paste to mozzarella, anchovies and tomatoes. Any of these would make wonderful cocktail party pass-arounds, as would Frico, crisp doilies of aged Montasio or Asiago cheese. There are even merende recipes to satisfy a sweet tooth, such as Amaretti al Caffe, the classic cookies so delicious with coffee, and Torta di Riso, a luxurious rice pudding torte. Field (The Italian Baker; Celebrating Italy) is a scholar of Italian food; her book includes a history of merende, a selected bibliography and a fairly comprehensive source guide for hard-to-find ingredients. Although Field laments the passing of the traditional snacktime in Italy-a victim, she says, of packaged, processed foods and an increasingly hectic way of life-her cookbook guarantees that the merende heritage can live on wherever people like to snack Italian-style.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal
Field is the well-known author of several books on Italy and its cuisine, including Celebrating Italy ( LJ 11/15/90) and the widely praised The Italian Baker ( LJ 11/15/85). Now she turns to merende , traditional Italian snack food, a category that includes both the American favorite, pizza, and a wide range of more unusual regional "little dishes." Many merende are based on bread or bread dough, Field's own specialty, and she has collected lots of mouth-watering recipes for bruschetta, crostini, and focaccia in all its incarnations, as well as various sweet and savory breads. There are also salads, bocconcini ("little bites," or finger food), and more. Recipes are simple, rustic, and uncomplicated, although some do involve a certain amount of preparation. Considering our current obsession with Italian food and the popularity of snack food, this is sure to be in demand.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060722797
• ISBN-13: 978-0060722791
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #481,910 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Italy's Answer to Mezes and Tapas. Highly Recommended, June 29, 2004

By	B. Marold (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Italy in Small Bites (Hardcover)

Carol Field is a major star in the field of Italian culinary writers to whom respect is shown by most major Italian food writers and many major bread baking authors for her important book `The Italian Baker'. In turn, Field shows respect for many of her colleagues such as Patience Gray and Paula Wolfert in this book.

I was always puzzled when I read in books on Greek and Spanish food that the western Mediterranean tapas and the eastern Mediterranean Mezes of both Greece and Turkey were not the same as the Italian `little dishes' labeled antipasto. The basis for this difference was that tapas and Mezes are made to be eaten as `bar food' in the afternoon, several hours before sitting down to the final meal of the day. Antipasto, by its very name, on the other hand, is the first course of a large meal. The source of the puzzle is that I found it very hard to believe that there was an old Mediterranean tradition with well-identified dishes at both sides of the Mediterranean, but none in the center in Italy, the very heart of Mediterranean cuisine.

This book answers this question. Italy has not one, but two names for between meal snacks. The older, more traditional name for a snack in the afternoon, about the same time their English cousins are having tea, is called `merenda'. Like tapas and Mezes, these are specifically made and served by Enoteca (wine bars) as well as being a traditional afternoon snack for agricultural workers in the fields. For this reason, one of the defining characteristics of merenda dishes is that they can be eaten while holding them in one hand. The derivation of the term `merenda' can be traced back to classical Latin. The second term, `spuntino' is a nineteenth century invention meaning a mid-morning snack, not unlike doughnuts at the morning coffee break. The author does not explore the origins of this word too deeply, but I would not at all be surprised to see it connected with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

As one looks at the recipes in this book, it becomes clear that the distinction between `merenda' dishes and all other Italian dishes is entirely based on when and where they are eaten. Almost every class of recipe in the book can be found in dozens of other Italian cookbooks. I have whole bookshelves weighed down with recipes for frittatas; egg tarts; polenta; grilled or marinated vegetables; condimento; bocconcini (small mozzarella balls); and Biscotti. But these are not even the stars of the merenda catalogue. Appropriate to Ms. Field's bread baking speciality, the real star of merenda is the enormous range of Italian breads and the things the Italians do with bread. This includes artisinal breads, focaccia, pizza, breads with olives and other vegetables baked within, and all the things Italians do with bread such as bruschetta, crostini, and Panini. Note that I tacked Panini on to the end of that list, as Ms. Field does not even mention sandwiches, let alone devote a chapter to it. This is odd, because in his Food Network series `Mario Eats Italy', Batali devotes an entire show to merenda, and Panini are highlighted. But back to Ms. Field's book.

If any book will convince you that bread is even more important to the Italian cuisine than pasta, this book will do it. While bread appears on almost every page, pasta has but five minor mentions in the Index. Recall that the ubiquitous dry pasta of today is a very modern development. Dry pasta did not travel far beyond southern Italy until early in the twentieth century while bread has been made throughout Italy for millennia. In fact, one of the early chapters in this book is entitled `In the Beginning There is Bread'. The most heartwarming feature of this chapter is a very long list of ways in which bread is traditionally turned into snacks. These are methods so simple the author is even reluctant to turn them into a full recipe. It should be no surprise that the supporting cast for these `little bites' is the whole catalog of the Italian pantry such as olive oil, sardines, cheeses, onion, garlic, salame, ham, bresaola (salt cured beef) and butter.

For the person enchanted by every aspect of the Italian cuisine, this book is a real treasure. It gives real substance to a picture of how these merenda were eaten and dispensed by shops going back as far as Imperial Rome. In fact, the book raises some serious doubt about how modern is the `fast food' phenomenon. It seems that cheap, fast, food from probably inferior products have been sold to lower income workers from Imperial times, through the Middle Ages, on the streets of Renaissance Florence, through to the nineteenth century. In fact, the author sees the merenda tradition disappearing and often had to rely on her interviewees' memory of what they ate as children.

Lest I overlook the recipes themselves, let me say they cover a very broad range of dishes (mentioned above) with especially strong coverage being given to bread recipes based on the classically Italian biga method for a very sticky sponge which is left to rise for between six (6) and twenty-four (24) hours. This is the basis of recipes for vegetable and cheese filled breads. A rustic brioche recipe is given and a fried dough, `gnocco fritto', which appears very similar to New Orleans bignets.

I noted that many, if not most of these recipes can be found in one or another of the thoursands of Italian cookbooks. However, if you don't have thoursands of Italian cookbooks, I heartily recommend this one as a source of many interesting little dishes, both imprompu and long in preparation, but mostly easy except for the breads. One could easily make a very usefully themed collection of this and books on other little Mediterranean foods.

Highly recommended reading and recipes.