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Cucina Rustica
Cucina Rustica,"the rustic 'kitchen,"is Italian food at its simplest and freshest. With more than 250 recipes that use readily available ingredients in deliciously creative combinations, La Place and Kleiman offer a style of cooking and eating that's inviting, easy, and elegant.
385 pages, Hardcover
First published April 26, 1990
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45 people want to read
About the author
Viana La Place
11 books9 followersViana La Place is the author or coauthor of eight other Italian cookbooks, including Verdura: Vegtables Italian Style, Cucina Fresca, and Pasta Fresca. She lives in San Francisco.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 6, 2010
Fantastic! The recipes for the biscotti and pasta sauces are wonderful.
June 4, 2012
For the uninitiated there can be a lot more to authentic Italian food than pasta, pizzas and ice cream, notwithstanding the influences from neighbouring countries and more latterly international fusions.
Rural Italian food or rustic food, to give it its "selling name", has been an increasingly popular food style for many and this book provides quite a lot of rustic recipes for your delight, delectation and production at home.
After a fairly interesting introduction about the concepts behind cucina rustic (the simple kitchen) and a look at some sample menus, the reader is given a primer on the Italian kitchen and many detailed descriptions of typical ingredients that feature within rustic Italian recipes. Then it is onto the dishes themselves. First split into several sections - antipasti, insalate (salads), zuppe e minestre (soups), pasta, risotto, polenta, contorni (vegetables), pesce e frutti di mare (fish & shellfish), pollame e carne (poultry & meat) and dolci (desserts).
This book is high on information and very low on imagery overall, yet the quality of the given explanatory text and recipes cannot be understated. Each recipe features its Italian and English names, often an introduction to the dish or an explanation to it, then the ingredients are broken out into a table before the actual cooking instructions are given. The instructions are written in a simple-to-understand, jargon-free manner which is a great aid. The only thing missing is a constant bugbear to YUM and that is the lack of an estimated preparation and cooking time. It really does help the rushed and/or uncertain cook. Photographs are always nice as an inspirational aid and to give a little more confidence that your dish looks something like the "ideal finished thing." Even if the taste cannot be checked.
The index at the back is fairly comprehensive, broken down by recipe and key ingredients. It is also good to note that both the Italian and English names are cross-referenced. Some books tend to forget how important that can be. Small things can make a difference!
So minor niggles aside this is a very good book of its type and still can stand over the shoulders of many "celebrity chefs" and their takes on Italian food. The benefit with rustic food in particular is that it can be a little more forgiving towards slight cooking problems/ingredient substitutions and the varying experience of the cook. After all, in the home kitchen one had to be flexible and work within reason with what was at hand.
Cucina Rustica: Simple, Irresistible Recipes in the Rustic Italian Style, written by Viana La Place & Evan Kleiman and published by HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060935115, 384 pages. Typical price: GBP12. YYYY.
This is a RETROspective review of a previously-published book that, whilst not new on the market, is still available and the review has been made of the book as it stands today.
// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //
Rural Italian food or rustic food, to give it its "selling name", has been an increasingly popular food style for many and this book provides quite a lot of rustic recipes for your delight, delectation and production at home.
After a fairly interesting introduction about the concepts behind cucina rustic (the simple kitchen) and a look at some sample menus, the reader is given a primer on the Italian kitchen and many detailed descriptions of typical ingredients that feature within rustic Italian recipes. Then it is onto the dishes themselves. First split into several sections - antipasti, insalate (salads), zuppe e minestre (soups), pasta, risotto, polenta, contorni (vegetables), pesce e frutti di mare (fish & shellfish), pollame e carne (poultry & meat) and dolci (desserts).
This book is high on information and very low on imagery overall, yet the quality of the given explanatory text and recipes cannot be understated. Each recipe features its Italian and English names, often an introduction to the dish or an explanation to it, then the ingredients are broken out into a table before the actual cooking instructions are given. The instructions are written in a simple-to-understand, jargon-free manner which is a great aid. The only thing missing is a constant bugbear to YUM and that is the lack of an estimated preparation and cooking time. It really does help the rushed and/or uncertain cook. Photographs are always nice as an inspirational aid and to give a little more confidence that your dish looks something like the "ideal finished thing." Even if the taste cannot be checked.
The index at the back is fairly comprehensive, broken down by recipe and key ingredients. It is also good to note that both the Italian and English names are cross-referenced. Some books tend to forget how important that can be. Small things can make a difference!
So minor niggles aside this is a very good book of its type and still can stand over the shoulders of many "celebrity chefs" and their takes on Italian food. The benefit with rustic food in particular is that it can be a little more forgiving towards slight cooking problems/ingredient substitutions and the varying experience of the cook. After all, in the home kitchen one had to be flexible and work within reason with what was at hand.
Cucina Rustica: Simple, Irresistible Recipes in the Rustic Italian Style, written by Viana La Place & Evan Kleiman and published by HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060935115, 384 pages. Typical price: GBP12. YYYY.
This is a RETROspective review of a previously-published book that, whilst not new on the market, is still available and the review has been made of the book as it stands today.
// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //
December 20, 2008
Get it
read it
do it
read it
do it
November 15, 2019
There are some scrumptious recipes, but “readily available ingredients” is misleading. If one lives in a big, ethnically diverse city - maybe. In small rural towns - maybe not.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews