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The Silver Spoon Hardcover – October 1, 2005

by Phaidon Press (Author)

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Presents more than two thousand recipes for traditional Italian dishes.

Print length

1264 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Phaidon Press
Publication date

October 1, 2005
Grade level

8 and up
Reading age

13 years and up
Dimensions

7.75 x 2.63 x 11 inches
ISBN-10

0714845310
ISBN-13

978-0714845319
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

First published in 1950 and revised over time, Italy's bestselling culinary "bible," Il Cucchiaio d'argento, is now available in English. The Silver Spoon boasts over 2,000 recipes and arrives in a handsome (and weighty) photo-illustrated edition complete with two ribbon markers. Its chapters make every menu stop from sauces and antipasti through cheese dishes and sweets, with many standout dishes like Genoese Pesto Minestrone, Eggplant and Ricotta Lasagna, Pork Shoulder with Prunes, and Chocolate and Pear Tart; the book also includes a number of "eccentricities," like sections on patty shells and bean sprouts, surely not an Italian dining staple. Meant to be inclusive, the book also offers a wide range of non-Italian, mostly French formulas, supplemented by a few "exotic" and other non-traditional entries.

Though the recipe range is vast, it must be said that American readers, anxious to cook this authentic fare, will encounter problems. Translating a cookbook from one language to another requires cultural recasting as well as word substitution, and in this the book's editors have been lax. The problems include non-idiomatic usages, for example, calling for "pans" when "pots" is needed; awkward conversions from the metric system, resulting in requirements like eleven ounces of zite; and the inclusion of ingredients like cavolo nero (Tuscan cabbage), tope (a Mediterranean fish), and pancetta copatta (ham-stuffed pancetta) that are unavailable here and for which no alternatives are suggested. In addition, the recipes themselves are often insufficiently specific or detailed--even seasoned bakers will pause before cake recipes that don't specify pan size--and can also lack yields. Space considerations have also meant printing recipes in single, one-column paragraphs, which can make place-finding while cooking difficult, and there are typos and other goofs (one recipe for four specifies six cups of sliced scallions; another requires that a marinade be "stirred frequently for five to twelve hours").

All this said, many cooks--casual and serious alike--as well as cookbook collectors, will want The Silver Spoon. It's an essential document of the Italian table and as such a classic. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a complete cookbook library without the book--a welcome evocation of a much-beloved repertoire by those who know it best. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Featuring over 2,000 recipes among its 1,200-plus pages, it's easy to see why this Italian version of The Joy of Cooking, billed as "the bible of authentic Italian cooking," is a popular wedding gift. Newly updated and translated into English for the first time, the book contains recipes for everything from basic sauces and marinades to salads, game, fish and baked goods, with each section color-coded for easy browsing. Recipes emphasize fresh ingredients and are to-the-point, typically summed up in a paragraph sans photo illustrations. Those who know their way around a kitchen will appreciate the brevity, but a novice might encounter some frustration when making pasta dishes featuring homemade gnocchi or orecchiette without a more in-depth description or the aid of photos. Almost all of the ingredients called for can be found in a typical supermarket, though more exotic dishes such as Eel with Savoy Cabbage, Woodcock with Truffle, or Calf's Head Salad will require some planning. Globe-trotting gourmands will appreciate the menu and "signature dish" contributions by famous Italian chefs that round out the book. The most exhaustive Italian cookbook in recent memory, this volume offers something for every cook, regardless of their skill level, and deserves to be a fixture in American kitchens.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Phaidon Press; US edition (October 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 1264 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0714845310
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0714845319
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 13 years and up
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 8 and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.75 x 2.63 x 11 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #268,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #350 in Italian Cooking, Food & Wine
- #492 in Gastronomy History (Books)
- #681 in Cooking, Food & Wine Reference (Books)

Customer Reviews:
475 ratings

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Phaidon Press

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Phaidon Press is a global publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, as well as cookbooks, children's books, and travel books. The company is based in London and New York City, with additional offices in Paris and Berlin. With over 1,500 titles in print, Phaidon books are sold in over 100 countries and are printed in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Mandarin, and dozens of other languages. Since the publisher's founding in Vienna in 1923, Phaidon has sold more than 42 million books worldwide.

Customer reviews

5 star		80%
4 star		8%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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S. D.

Dictionary

Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

You'll get lots of recipes but few pictures. This books looks like a dictionary and is not a pleasant read. I don't recommend because I like to see pictures of what I am about to make. It is also difficult to handle because it is so big.

3 people found this helpful

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Charlene Vickers

The Cookbook of the Decade

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2005

Verified Purchase

I own over three hundred cookbooks so it's rare for me to get excited over a new one, but The Silver Spoon is different. This is by far the best cookbook released in the English language in the past ten years.

One has to wonder why it took so long for an English-language version to be sold in North America. This cookbook has almost everything a serious home cook could want. Most recipes are simple to prepare and turn out well, and all call for real ingredients, not canned or pre-processed glop. It's surprising how few ingredients go into most recipes and how incredibly flavourful they turn out. I've tried over 30 recipes from the book, and every one turned out perfectly and was delicious.

One unusual feature is the large section on vegetables. Too many cookbooks have huge sections dedicated to meat but a tiny vegetable section containing only a few recipes for carrots, potatoes, and corn. The Silver Spoon contains recipes for dozens of vegetables, including finnochio, mushrooms, artichokes, cabbage (all kinds), parsnips, turnips, chard, and cardoons, in addition to recipes for the more common types. There's also an extensive section on seafood and fish and a large number of "first course" recipes, including appetizers, pizzas, soups, and salads.

Other reviewers have mentioned that many recipes call for unusual amounts of certain ingredients. This is likely because the translators didn't want to test the recipes themselves and were leery of changing the recipes without testing. I personally would have preferred if both metric and imperial measures had been given. In Canada most of our food is sold in metric sizes, so sometimes I feel like I'm translating backwards (11 oz. is 300 grams, 7 oz. is 200 grams, etc.).

There are a few translation clunkers that haven't been recently mentioned: the "Caesar mushrooms" called for in some recipes are likely chanterelles, and the "farro" which makes up some grain dishes is much better known in North America as spelt. I suspect that many of these "errors" in translation are really differences between UK usage and North American usage.

The section on baking is much smaller than in most North American cookbooks. I don't know if Italian families don't eat sweets or if they buy them from a bakery, but the lack of cookie, cake, and tart recipes did seem strange to me. There is also no recipe for Italian bread, quite possibly because most Europeans live near a good bakery and don't have to choose between making bread at home or eating the styrofoamish bread sold at most North American supermarkets.

These are minor quibbles, however. The Silver Spoon contains thousands of uncomplicated recipes for delicious food. It would be a steal at twice the price.

32 people found this helpful

Helpful

Joe King

Encyclopedic, simple, advanced

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2006

Verified Purchase

Echoing so many other rave reviews, I have to say this is one of the most exciting cookbooks I've hefted (and it is hefty!) in a long time. It seems like nearly everything that I've eaten in Italy or seen on an Italian menu or read in another Italian cookbook has a straightforward, canonical recipe in this tome. It was like discovery, uncovering secrets again and again. I was breathless turning pages in my favorites sections, and kept returning to the book for days, unable to pull myself away.

One feature that continued to grab me was the stunning, paradoxical simplicity of these recipes. On the one hand, the dishes themselves have the admirable directness of the most memorable meals in Italy -- made from a handful of ingredients prepared without fuss. One or two flavors against a shallow backdrop. For instance, reading a recipe in The Silver Spoon, I think: "Well, of course! Braised savoy cabbage with buckwheat pasta! And of course, it needs so little to go with it -- a little garlic, onion, some chopped sage, salt and pepper. Buono appetit!" Again and again, page after page of recipes with like five or eight ingredients, showcasing the simple, delicate plate so often presented in Italy, whatever the focus.

On the other hand, the recipe text itself is also simple. As other reviewers have noted, this is not a beginner's cookbook. For instance, it may say "Your going to take this fish, and bake it with these herbs and capers, and pour over it this sauce." But it will *not* say "Here's how you prepare a fish filet. Here's how you bake it, and how to tell when it is done. This is the emulsification that you want when you whisk together the sauce ingredients. Etc." You're expected to already have that experience. Another example: I've made a good bit of fresh pasta, egg-based or oil, with a machine roller or rolled with a pin by hand. With this background, the directions for all of the wonderful fresh pasta variations in this book made sense to me and were clear. But they were simple, short, and matter of fact -- way less than the pages that other cookbooks devote to preparing the dough, and the silky feel of the rolled dough when it's ready, and resting under towels before cutting, etc.

So I wonder what it'll be like when I try a simple, matter of fact recipe for something I haven't already made a lot, like a gnocchi, from this cookbook. In truth, I'm not too worried, because I already have other cookbooks that say how hard it is to make good gnocchi and explain techniques at length. This cookbook, in contrast, merely says "You know, there are 20 scrumptious traditional variations of gnocchi, including polenta, pumpkin, rice, cheese, and more -- and here's their straightforward recipes." I love that!

Maybe the editors assumed that someone growing up in a home with an Italian kitchen has already seen fresh pasta or gnocchi made, and just needs the recipes for all the variations. Like an American cookbook can say "boil an egg" without further directions. So this cookbook, though encyclopedic in it's recipes, is not -- as other reviewers have said -- encyclopedically instructional in how to cook them, like Joy of Cooking, Beard's American Cookery, or Bittman's How to Cook Everything all are.

And that's just fine.

The Silver Spoon, in this way that it is thrillingly evocative while not being deeply instructional, reminds me most of Alice Waters' cookbooks -- where she will sometimes just list ingredients without amounts, and describe how to cook them together without times; e.g. olive oil and quartered fennel bulb and chili and fennel seed, braised long and slow.

The Silver Spoon does list amounts and times. Maybe it's a reflection of Italian cuisine itself that everything seems so simply stated. It comes across as confident, for the confident chef, who will enjoy this book the most.

14 people found this helpful

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Steve C.

The Italian Bible!

Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

No one cooking Italian should be without this book! Plenty of great recipes -- simple to prepare and easily explained. Even if you are a good/great cook, this book will jog your memory of dishes you haven't made in a while. Totally legit. Food like I was raised on!

One person found this helpful

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D. Sacerdote

Just ok

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

Great recipe resource for Italian cooking, but there are lots of typos and some confusing mistranslations. Can't give it a higher rating than 3 stars.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mrs L Evans

Incredibly poor quality

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book had been described as ‘good condition’ however was dog-eared, had ex-library stamps and labels all over the cover, , spine and pages, had a page missing and was filthy (see photographs). It certainly wasn’t in good condition and I am returning the product. This review is no reflection on the book itself which looks to be a great book with lots of really useful recipes. The quality from Music Magpie is just disappointing.

2 people found this helpful

Jan Jozefowicz

A must for anyone who loves cooking and baking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

Best recipe book I own. I love Italian food so perfect. I never knew how many different varieties of some dishes I thought I knew there was. Had this for a good few years now and still have not even covered half of the book. If you like to impress impress people with interesting dishes and information it is great as the front has lots of details about the dishes and regions. I think every kitchen should have this book.

One person found this helpful

2 different items ! L.B.

The Silver Spoon Italian Cook Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2013

Verified Purchase

We're the happy owners of this wonderful cookbook and had it for a couple of years now. On a special occasion, we gave it as a gift to our family members.The family likes to spend holidays in Italy and they're fond lovers of Italian food ! :-)))) They all delight in this cook book as it's so easy to work with. There are some 2.000 recipes in it, and the best bit is that, the ingredients & recipes are clearly listed, and there are 3 to 4 recipes per page. The register makes for easy and fast finding of whatever it is you're searching for. It's a delight to work with and you'll defintiely find yourself cooking more of this wonderful food, due to that. The ingredients themselves you can get pretty near all year round, nothing exceptional or rare, nothing hard to find, except perhaps on occasion a particular (dried)pasta. easy to skip around that though, I would think. I hope this is helpful to someone wondering whether to buy this book. KInd regards, L.B..

One person found this helpful

Sally Wilton

A must for any Italian food lover

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2008

Verified Purchase

My late step father was an Italian restauranteur and had a copy of this same book in Italian throughout his career. He even had it rebound a few years back. During his life he ran a hotel in Rome a stones throw from the Vatican and cooked for cardinals that came to the hotel using recipes from the Silver spoon.

I was therefore thrilled when this came out in English and so far have bought 3 copies so that both my daughters have them for their homes. They use them daily. Not only is this the authentic cookery book for Italian food lovers it is amazingly economical, utilising seasonal fresh foods and not that many ingredients unlike so many newer recipes.

No matter what the ingredient there will be a delicious recipe or more to make in the authentic Italian style. Rabbit, Hare, Brains, Celery or Turnip all get the Silver spoon makeover turning them into totally delicious meals.

Risotto with carrots for example is fantastically creamy as the carrot is pureed. Highly recommended reading and an ideal gift for any newly weds or new home buyers.

8 people found this helpful

James Stephenson

Not Just Italian

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2009

Verified Purchase

This is apparently the standard wedding present for new Italian couples. It has an encyclopaedic content - including Irish Stew. We have a couple of hundred cookbooks and my wife views the appearance of a new book with derision. This was different, she can cook (really cook) and loves Italian food and we have most of the Italian Classics. This is comprehensive, aimed at somebody who (unlike another reviewer) would know that you don't boil green beans for 20 minutes. The recipes work and if, in a book of this size and breadth of content, there is the odd error, the answer for those who recognise them to let the editorial team know. It is not quite the only cookbook you need. However, if you have it buying another one seems like an extravagence.

One person found this helpful

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