Italian Cuisine or Healthy Hedonist

Italian Cuisine (Arts and Traditions of the Table Series): A Cultural History

Author: Alberto Capatti

Italy, the country with a hundred cities and a thousand bell towers, is also the country with a hundred cuisines and a thousand recipes. Its great variety of culinary practices reflects a history long dominated by regionalism and political division, and has led to the common conception of Italian food as a mosaic of regional customs rather than a single tradition. Nonetheless, this magnificent new book demonstrates the development of a distinctive, unified culinary tradition throughout the Italian peninsula.

Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari uncover a network of culinary customs, food lore, and cooking practices, dating back as far as the Middle Ages, that are identifiably Italian:

o Italians used forks 300 years before other Europeans, possibly because they were needed to handle pasta, which is slippery and dangerously hot.

o Italians invented the practice of chilling drinks and may have invented ice cream.

o Italian culinary practice influenced the rest of Europe to place more emphasis on vegetables and less on meat.

o Salad was a distinctive aspect of the Italian meal as early as the sixteenth century.

The authors focus on culinary developments in the late medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras, aided by a wealth of cookbooks produced throughout the early modern period. They show how Italy's culinary identities emerged over the course of the centuries through an exchange of information and techniques among geographical regions and social classes. Though temporally, spatially, and socially diverse, these cuisines refer to a common experience that can be described as Italian. Thematically organized around key issues in culinary history and beautifullyillustrated, Italian Cuisine is a rich history of the ingredients, dishes, techniques, and social customs behind the Italian food we know and love today.

Library Journal

In this history of Italy's food, cooking, and eating, the authors have opted for an "everything including the kitchen sink" approach. Throughout, Capatti, who has written several books on food and eating, and Montanari (history, Univ. of Bologna) offer extensive lists of foodstuffs and names of dishes, sometimes to the detriment of the point they are trying to make. Organized topically rather than chronologically, the book constantly folds back on itself, leaving the reader with an ongoing feeling of familiarity with recurring names but not with an appropriate context. Although the topics range widely, from the lexicon of Italian food to the dress code for kitchen staff, one senses that there are still gaps. The 20th century and the effects of the open European Community on Italian eating, for example, are scarcely touched. The wealth of notes and suggested readings are the book's greatest offering. Suitable for academic libraries.-Peter Hepburn, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

publisher
"Alberto Cappatti and Massimo Montanari deserve a feast. They have thoroughly researched and described the cultural context of Italian food throughout history. Why are prosciutto and melon paired? What did people eat in the middle ages? Who invented sorbet? A fine tour of the history of the peninsula with a fork in hand. This book will live on my desk right beside the Italian dictionary."
-Frances Mayes, author of Under a Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany

"This book is an amazing resource for anyone interested in how the world ended up loving pasta, mozzarella and osso bucoand the cultural story Italian food tells. All you have to do is dip in and out of a few chapters and you'll feel like you've graduated from a culinary history class lead by the masters, from Apicius to Platina to Artusi."
-Cesare Casella, author of Diary of a Tuscan Chef

"Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History is the book I have been waiting for. It gives the history of the Italian eating tradition, exploring ingredients and recipes of the Italians within an economic and topographical context. This is a great book with layers of information, research and examples of what constitutes the Italian culinary tradition."
-Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, cookbook author, public television host, and restaurateur

Table of Contents:

	Series Editor's Preface
	Introduction: Identity as Exchange
Ch. 1	Italy: A Physical and Mental Space	1
Ch. 2	The Italian Way of Eating	35
Ch. 3	The Formation of Taste	84
Ch. 4	The Sequence of Dishes	121
Ch. 5	Communicating Food: The Recipe Collection	155
Ch. 6	The Vocabulary of Food	187
Ch. 7	The Cook, the Innkeeper, and the Woman of the House	212
Ch. 8	Science and Technology in the Kitchen	243
Ch. 9	Toward a History of the Appetite	273
	Notes	303
	Bibliography	325
	Index	335

Book review: The Best of Wild Rice Recipes or Cognac

Healthy Hedonist: More Than 200 Delectable Flexitarian Recipes for Relaxed Daily Feasts

Author: Myra Kornfeld

How would you like to prepare and savor a delicious meal that's also nourishing and healthful? In The Healthy Hedonist, chef, teacher, and cookbook author Myra Kornfeld offers home cooks more than two hundred mouthwatering flexitarian recipes designed to satisfy all kinds of appetites -- without leaving you feeling stuffed and guilty afterward!

So, what is a flexitarian? A flexitarian is anyone interested in eating healthy, primarily vegetarian cuisine without cutting meat and fish entirely from his or her diet. The Healthy Hedonist is the ideal cookbook for people with a variety of eating habits: the recipes are readily adapted to suit vegetarians, omnivores, and everyone in between.

The emphasis here is on real food: fresh, natural, and, of course, delicious ingredients are used to create unique and healthful meals. Aside from soups, appetizers, salads, chicken and fish dishes, vegetarian entrees, grains, and vegetables, there are tempting recipes for pizza, alternative burgers, and naturally sweetened desserts. You can indulge yourself and feel virtuous at the same time with delectable fare such as:

• Portobello Mushroom Tapenade
• Wilted Spinach Salad with Orange-Curry Dressing
• Crispy Thai Wontons
• Potato Salad with Caramelized Onions
• Roast Chicken with Maple Glaze
• Coconut Green Beans with Mustard Seeds
• Lacquered Carrots with Coriander Gazpacho Salad with Tomato Vinaigrette
• Red Snapper Provencale
• Marrakesh Minestrone with Cilantro Puree
• Tamarind Chickpeas
• Asparagus, Leek, and Barley Risotto
• Barbeque Spice -- Rubbed Tofu
• Seared Sesame-Crusted Tuna
• Zucchini Latkes
• Salmon Medallions withLime-Mustard Teriyaki
• Citrus Compote Supreme
• Roasted Peaches with Caramel Sauce
• Chocolate Lovers' Brownies
• Pomegranate-Pear Cornmeal Tart

Throughout the book are plenty of helpful suggestions for substituting ingredients to suit your taste or dietary preference and for cooking for large groups or smaller gatherings, along with preparation tips and menu ideas. In addition, easy-to-follow illustrations guide you toward creating superb meals sure to appeal to every palate. For any and all food lovers, The Healthy Hedonist is the healthy, scrumptious way to enjoy sensational feasts every day.

Publishers Weekly

It's not uncommon for people to call themselves vegetarian, only to say that they sometimes eat fish and maybe poultry. What they're probably really interested in is a healthful, well-rounded diet, making them "flexitarians," a growing group that Kornfeld (The Voluptuous Vegan) addresses in this winning cookbook. Pseudo-meat products (like tofu) are used sparingly, and dishes that do have them, such as Wilted Arugula with Braised Tempeh, Mango, and Red Onion, with its delightful intersections of salty and sweet, may conquer even their sworn enemies. Vegetarian offerings dominate, but there's a whole chapter on fish and chicken, which are generally simply prepared but then transformed by more complex sauces, as in the elegant Black Bass in Leek-Saffron-Tomato Broth. Kornfeld's instructions are fairly detailed, and helpful drawings illustrate some of the more difficult techniques, but many recipes can still demand time and patience. Cooks who are willing to put in the effort because they agree with Kornfeld about the need to get past fad diets and eat fresh, "unfussy" food will be thrilled with the possibilities this book provides for pleasing a variety of people and their different eating habits. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

What's a flexitarian? The term, according to cooking teacher Kornfeld (The Voluptuous Vegan), was first coined in the early 1990s and refers to someone who eats a mostly vegetarian diet but occasionally consumes meat or meat products. In her flexitarian cookbook, Kornfeld covers all courses and includes a wide variety of interesting and international dishes. As might be expected, she stresses the use of natural, organic ingredients to maximize the healthful qualities of her recipes. Though most of the ingredients she calls for should be available in specialty, ethnic, and health-food stores, she thoughtfully includes a select list of sources. Many of the dishes featured can be prepared quickly-a boon to home cooks; some, however, require an investment of time and ingredients that are better suited to special occasions. Charming illustrations by Hamanaka round out the text. By including recipes for both types of fare, Kornfeld has written a welcome addition for the vegetarian cookbook collection of any public library.-Andrea R. Dietze, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.