The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lynne Rossetto Kasper's authoritative first book, The Splendid Table, explored the food and culture of Emilia-Romagna, Italy's culinary heartland. In The Italian Country Table, a collection of 200 regional recipes gathered from farmhouse cooks, Kasper once again provides cultural investigation and authentic, workable recipes. The resulting cookbook-cum-chronicle will appeal to anyone seeking delicious, down-to-earth dishes and an introduction to cherished culinary traditions.

Covering every course of an Italian meal--from antipasti through pasta to vegetables and, of course, dessert--the book weaves recipes with vignettes exploring, for example, Puglia's ritual drying of winter tomatoes. Included also are notes on buying tips, special cooking techniques such as glazing, and discussions of culinary moment, like the nature of a true risotto Milanese. The immediately inviting recipes include such temptations as Mushrooms Stuffed with Radicchio and Asiago, Hot and Spicy Eggplant Soup, Leg of Lamb Glazed with Balsamic and Red Wine, and Espresso Ricotta Cream with Espresso Chocolate Sauce. Kasper also offers a chapter on focaccia, pizza, and bread, as well as menus, shopping sources, and a useful discussion of ingredients. (Taste before you buy, and then pause, she advises. "Aftertaste can reveal how a food's been stored, careless production, or foods going from mature to over the hill.") Concluding with a guide to Italian guest farms, folk life museums, and places to eat and shop, the book is a comprehensive introduction to basic but inspired home cooking and the traditions that both contain and nurture it. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

With this equally successful follow-up, Kasper proves that her first cookbook, The Splendid Table (which won awards from both James Beard and the IACP), was no fluke. The recipes here are collected from home cooks living in the Italian countrysideAmany of them on working farms. While most of the recipes are simple, Kasper never rests on her laurels by offering an already-familiar formula. Her Tomato-Mozzarella Salad with Pine Nuts and Basil is enhanced with red onion and currants. These are satisfying dishes, and most of them can be assembled quickly, like Seafood Saut? with Stubby Pasta and Spaghettini with Shrimp, Chickpeas and Young Greens. Flavors are never timid: Hot-and-Spicy Eggplant Soup packs a punch with chilies that marry interestingly with fresh mint; and gutsy Sweet-Sour Meatballs for St. Joseph's Day contain cinnamon and candied citron. Italian "home" desserts are satisfying and unfussy: Chocolate Polenta Pudding Cake and Iced Summer Peaches. In addition to concocting tight, clear recipes, Kasper writes beautiful prose. Even recipe headersAwhich include sensible "Cook to Cook" notes containing special tipsAare carefully crafted. Unobtrusive wine suggestions for most dishes are a bonus. Few American writers "get" Italy this clearly; fewer still can communicate their knowledge so smartly. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (October 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684813254
• ISBN-13: 978-0684813257
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #84,053 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History, Lore and Sumptuous Foods of Italy's Countryside, November 30, 1999

By	S.H. Erlich (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This is a book for people who love to eat - cooking is not really necessary for its enjoyment! Ms. Kasper is a wonderful writer who paints with words as beautifully as she cooks. Recipes are forthright - simple ingredients simply prepared. (For those who want a more complicated cuisine I'd recommend her first book ("The Splendid Table"). Here she tells tales and recites the folklore of the Italian countryside; she explains the heartland of the country and and the heart(s) of it's people. Since we can't all travel with Ms. Kasper as she makes her rounds, this is as close to heaven as we can get without a plane ticket! FIVE STARS!

55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lynn and Italian Country Food - - a perfect combination, December 6, 1999

By	Daniel A. Davis "Dan Davis" (Santa Maria, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Lynn's books combine history with recipes. You have the feeling you are sharing the Italian tradition, a link to great food. Anyone who enjoyed the extra food histories in her "The Splendid Table" must sample this great new Italian cookbook. Her researching is painstaking and exhaustive.

I know because I first met her in 1984; I prepared a dinner for her that year, using a new recipe for butterflied leg of lamb on the grill, and only later did I discover it was her recipe from an issue of "Bon Appetit". That meal was a highlight of my amateur career, shared only with the pleasure of being a part of her pre-publication surprise party for submission of the manuscript of "The Splendid Table".

Lynn's recipes live - - they talk to you. You experience them. This new volume is a must for lovers of good food and instructive cookbooks.

Dan Davis

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nonna would be proud, January 26, 2000

By A Customer

A cookbook that reads like a novel and brings to the table recipes that would make anyone's grandmother proud. After making "Nonna's Lasagne" I immediately called my mother, who has been making lasagne for more years than she'll let me admit, to emphatically state that this was the best lasagne I'd ever made. The recipes are simple to follow but the end products are anything but simple to the taste, the dishes are exquisite! The cook-to-cook hints are extremely helpful and the stories that are layered through the book are delightful. If you love italian food you must own this book. Grazie molto Lynne.