Cook the book! - 1 -

Well, not literally, of course! This time I'm not going to show you any recipe. Instead I want to share with you some good ideas for your culinary readings. It's not so easy to move among the huge offer of cookbooks and kitchen guides. Several are just amazing, other are just awful. For what concern Italian Cooking, the question is even more difficult. So you can find book written by some man who are Italian just in their last name. They try to put sandwiches everywhere, and in that kind of book you can easily find wrong Italian words (what the hell is "capicolla"? and, are you sure that Gnocchi & Meatball and Pizza Burger are real Italian dishes? I'm not! by the way, here I'm referring to the book "Carmine's Family Style Cookbook": Avoid it, please!)

So let's try to make some order. Obviously I haven't read all the Italian cookbooks, but I can suggest you some good texts to start your researches. So from now on I am going to start a new "column": Cook the Book! in which you will find some advices for good readings to do in your kitchen!

The first book I recommend you is La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, by Pellegrino Artusi. Yes I know, it's not the most recent cookbook, it was written in 1891, but it's one of my favorite texts about the Italian cookery. In fact it is much more than a cookbook, it's full of anectodes, stories about the post-unification Italy and many advices about how to keep yourself healthy. Artusi had an idea on almost anything! I love his approach to the cookery, it so comforting:

The art of cookery is like a naughty child who often drives you to distraction; however it can also give great satisfaction, either when a dish is a success or when you master a skill. Then you feel please and cry out victory.

So never give up!

In this book you will find some of the most famous recipes of the Italian cookery. It's important to keep in mind that he wrote this book when Italy just started feeling a nation itself. In fact he helped to establish a national cuisine and to unify an incredibly diverse country.

I think this book is an amazing reading for lovers of both Italian cookery and culture.

NOTE:

Here in New York there is an amazing bookstore "devoted exclusively to food and wine". I love independent bookshops (frankly I prefer them to the anonymous chains of bookstores...) and I heartily recommend you to visit it!

Kitchen Arts & Letters , 1435 Lexington Avenue, New York