AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: La Cucina Di Lidia : Recipes and Memories from Italy's Adriatic Coast by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, Jay Jacobs ISBN: 0-7679-1422-8 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 08 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Peasant Cuisine from Europe's Crossroads
Comment: This first book by Lidia Bastianich is both cookbook of recipes from the Istrian peninsula and Felidia Ristorante in Manhatten and a memoir of Lidia's life and family in central Europe and in the United States. The recipes occupy by far the larger portion of the book and include all of the expected elements of Italian cuisine. The culinary chapters are:

Appetizers and Soups
Salads and Vegetables
Pastas and Sauces
Fish
Meats
Game
Breads and Desserts
Spirits and Infusions

The most valuable portions of the book deal with the recipes native to Istria, especially those dealing with game and foraged vegetables and mushrooms. As the book makes clear, Istria, located near the top of the Adriatic Sea, is very near the crossroads of Europe's Roman, Slavic, and Germanic ethnic influences. The cuisine is all the more interesting for that fact. There are distinctly Austrian influences throughout the cuisine, including a recipe for an obscure Hungarian sweet crepe, palacinka, my Grandmother from Austria-Hungary would often make. The most vivid picture I get from the book is how food must have acquired the importance it has for many Europeans, since they spent so much of their time acquiring food and working with such inventive ways of making everything edible into something delicious.

The chapters on game cookery are expecially useful, including recipes for quail, Guinea hen, pheasant, squab, duck (with sauerkraut, of course), rabbit, venison, and wild boar. Of special interest is the technique, 'Squazet' which is an untranslatable word meaning a braising method used in Istria, suitable primarily to slow cooked meats. A good example of making the most of what you had.

All the recipes are good as well as interesting for being examples of Istrian cuisine. However, I would recommend that for breads and pasteries, one consult a specialist in these fields. These baking recipes will work, but I know there are better techniques to be had. The sections on fresh pasta are short, but they appear to give competant results. The sections on various types of gnocchi and it's techniques are very good. I believe the recipes for mushrooms have much to offer which you may not find elsewhere.

The treatment of photographs in this book leaves something to be desired. All are presented in an old fashioned sepia tint and some, even some photographed specifically for the book by modern equipment seem to loose detail to shadows and haziness. Placing captions for chapter heading photographs strikes at the rear of the book in an appendix strikes me as a case of really poor judgement. I have a hunch the captions were forgotten until it was too late to include them on the same page as the photo. There are some lapses in copy editing. The Italian culinary term 'sugo' is used in the memoir and no explanation is given for the term. It does not even appear in the appendix and is arcane enough to be absent from Larousse Gastronomique and a reference on Italian cuisine. I would have been baffled by the reference had I not encountered in the book 'Cooking by Hand' by Paul Bertolli.

I give this book the highest rating because it's shortcomings do not detract from it's primary mission of being an engaging and accessible presentation of Istrian cuisine.

Similar Books:

	Title: Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich ISBN: 037541150X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 23 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $35.00
	Title: Lidia's Italian Table : More Than 200 Recipes From The First Lady Of Italian Cooking by Lidia Bastianich ISBN: 0688154107 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 02 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $30.00
	Title: La Cucina Di Lidia by LIDIA MATTICCHIO BASTIANICH ISBN: 0385245114 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 01 November, 1990 List Price(USD): $36.50
	Title: Mario Batali Simple Italian Food: Recipes from My Two Villages by Mario Batali ISBN: 0609603000 Publisher: Clarkson Potter Pub. Date: 29 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $32.50
	Title: Ciao Italia in Tuscany: Traditional Recipes from One of Italy's Most Famous Regions by Mary Ann Esposito ISBN: 0312321740 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95