Never Trust A Skinny Italian Chef

by Massimo Bottura

"Massimo Bottura is the Jimi Hendrix of Italian chefs. . .he takes familiar dishes and classical flavors and techniques and turns them on their heads in a way that is innovative, boundaryâ?breaking, sky kissing, and entirely whimsical, but ultimately timeless, and most importantly, deliciously satisfying." â?? Mario Batali

Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is a tribute to Botturaâ??s twentyâ?five year career and the evolution of Osteria Francescana, his three Michelin star restaurant based in Modena, Italy, voted number 2 in The 50 best Restaurant Awards 2015. Divided into four chapters, each one dealing with a different period, the book features 50 recipes and stories explaining Botturaâ??s inspirations (including the music and art that motivates him), ingredients, and techniques. Follow Bottura as he pries, pokes and questions the authority of tradition, and in result creates whimsical dishes with a wink such as Memory of a Mortadella Sandwich, Tortellini Walking on Broth, and Oops! I Dropped the Lemon Tart!.

Illustrated with specially commissioned color photography by contemporary artists Stefano Graziani and Carlo Benvenuto, and featuring a conversation between Bottura and artist Maurizio Cattelan, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef will delight and inspire chefs, Italian food lovers, and fans of creative cuisine alike.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction

296 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2014

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want a cookbook that's 95% memoir and you want to be inspired by a Michellin Rated Chef, the book will be suitable for you...

And well, as for the recipes
if you can't buy Zibibbo vinegar from Pantelleria and Villa Manodori Essenziali lemon oil

this isn't your cookbook...

If you got money to burn on ingredients, know what you're getting into, and know it's more a coffee table book for chefs to drool over mostly, and want to cook only a handful of the recipes like the Eggplant Parmigian, have all your Ducasse and Adria cookbooks, as you decide not to do his incredibly difficult recipe for a liquified form of Osso Bucco.

Don't even think about this book without the right equipment like the sous vide stuff, a rotary evaporator aka chamber vacuum for extraction, Nitrous Oxide foamer, a thermal mixer and oh yes a Pacojet.

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Pacojet Trivia

[The Pacojet is a kitchen appliance for professionals that micro-purees deep-frozen foods into ultra-fine textures (such as mousses, sauces and sorbets) without thawing, and it made in Switzerland. And they start at the Pacojet Junior for $6000 and a real one will be $9000.]

[you could make Ice Cream in one without churning, since you'd be shaving the frozen ice cream base with a high speed blade at 2000 rpm, and then it's whipped without thawing the damn thing, as i understand it. Micro-pureeing for sauces and mousses for the freaks of the kitchen, like Heston Blumenthal. They started selling them in 1992 after a decade of development as the ultimate ice cream maker. You want super creamy gelato and you got ten million in the bank, this is the thing to buy!]

[“Basically you’ve got a motor and you’ve got a big drill press,” says Chef Fahey-Burke at the Modernist Cuisine lab. “Your typical Pacojet has a blue valve to let air out. We don’t want to serve people air.” So he ripped the hose out that was attached to the valve. Now it stays permanently open. I attach a pre-frozen container of the puréed macadamia nuts vanilla gelato base directly to the blades, and set a dial corresponding to several now illuminated horizontal bars. The bars indicate how far down through the beaker’s contents the blades will “drill” – just one bar for a kiddie cone-sized serving, or the whole beaker for a pint. “It’s designed that way so restaurants can do stuff to order,” he says. We process the whole beaker. I’m not planning on leftovers. The blades take one minute to rip up and down through my frozen mixture of macadamia nuts, sugar, oil, and vanilla beans. A hand-cranked ice cream machine takes about twenty assuming the mixture is cooled in advance. This requires more forethought than simply removing a beaker from the deep freeze. Even my Gelataio 1600, used so often that it resides in the cupboard next to my oils, can’t compete with the results of the Pacojet." The Pacojet makes the richest, densest, creamiest gelato I’ve ever eaten.]

[Ingredients: 680g water, 210 grams macadamia nuts, 155 grams sugar, 7 grams salt, 3 grams locust bean gum, optional (only necessary if using an ice cream machine instead of a Pacojet) 2 grams Lambda carrageenan, optional (or replace both powders with 4 grams xanthan or guar gum, which are more readily available) 102 grams neutral-flavoured oil.]

[Note: If you don’t use any of the powdered gums or carrageenan you do not need to heat the sugar to a specific temperature – only high enough to dissolve the sugar and salt. The gelato will not be as creamy without the powders, but it will still be far better than Haagen-Daaz.]

[Method: Use a hand blender to combine water, sugar, salt, locust bean gum and lambda carrageenan in a medium saucepan. Heat to 140 F. Blend to dissolve sugar and salt and remove from heat. Let cool. Soak macadamia nuts in enough water to cover for at least 30 minutes (or not – it’s just to soften them to help them blend, but that’s what the Pacojet is for). Drain and combine with cooled sugar mixture in a blender along with oil. Blend until as smooth as possible in a mere blender. Pour into Pacojet containers and freeze for at least 24 hours. Process in Pacojet – “pacojetize.” Serve immediately.]

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Giorgio Locatelli's two cookbooks for $50 are what you want for high end Italian cookery, that's useable.

If you're an Avant-Garde lover of Italian Cooking, and just want casually written recipes in fine print at the back, honestly it's really a coffee table book, you get a medal if you cook 4-15 recipes.

I'll be generous and give it 3 stars, if you realize the book really is only for freaks and Mario Batali.

[Xena van Aalsburg]

In the gastronomical scene, Massimo Bottura has been hailed as an artist. His first cookbook, in my opinion, has been erroneously mislabelled. It reads like an exhibition catalogue with an index of recipes, and the design certainly leans into this interpretation. Why Phaidon has chosen to market this publication as otherwise, is absolutely astounding.
I can't think of another cookbook that is as engaging an experience, that was not authored by Massimo Bottura (see Bread Is Gold). If Bottura were to ever pivot into writing, he would not starve.

[Janet Clark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Zero. Not worthy of a single star. This enormous volume weighs as much as an adult male, is 90% mediocre food photography--nothing mouth watering--and a waste of natural resources. It appears to be a pretentious attempt at avant garde food something-or-other. Huge disappointment for something with such a catchy title.

[J.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read a lot of cookbooks, but this is the second best cookbook I have ever read. Here's the first. I probably won't be attempting any of the recipes from this one either.

[Harry Balden]

If you intend on using any recipes from this “cookery book” you will need to requisition the industrial capacity and equipment of a medium sized sovereign EU nation

Kind of devestating mirror to contemporary Euro-decedance

[Ismael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent chef of our time. Balancing tradition and innovation in a way that few chefs envision.

[Andrea Minucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veramente interessante per comprendere e capire l'evoluzione e la storia di un ristorante e di un grande chef.

[Vladimir Semenov · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive book, giving insights into the mind of one best chefs in the world. Only useful for professional chefs and food researchers.

[QuyAn]

Cooking, innovation, art, history, culture, tradition and poetry. All in one big beautiful book.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delve into the mind of Massimo Bottura and the process behind the dishes created at Osteria Franciscan. Lush photos.

[Lesley Cheung · Rating 1 out of 5]

ugh, the author just blabbered all of his thoughts without editing. fancy hardcover, no content inside.

[Holly]

Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is the first major cookbook by Massimo Bottura, chef at the Modenese restaurant Osteria Francescana. Drawn to the center of Modena, Bottura opened the acclaimed eatery twenty years ago in 1995. Since then, Osteria Francescana has risen to fame, earning three Michelin stars and a third-place ranking in the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards in 2014. In his international debut, published by Phaidon in 2014, Bottura tells the story of his kitchen “through its recipes,” giving readers a rare glimpse behind the curtain.

As Bottura explains, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is at its core “an Italian cookbook, even though it may not look like one.” Bottura is proud of his culinary heritage, saying “My bones are made of Parmigiano Reggiano, and balsamic vinegar rushes through my veins. This is my story and my kitchen.” Yet, he does not let the old rules define him. He considers recipes to be “living” documents which need refreshing just as much as the human mind.

Read more: http://blog.gessato.com/2015/03/06/fo...

[Vuk Trifkovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Granted, Bottura can come across as pretentious. Yes, his desire to drop cool cultural references is cringeworthy. Of course, his overenthusiastic intellectualism is really wearing. Namedropping? Don't even start on that.

And yet, and yet, it's an excellent book! Very well put together, 90% absolutely uncookable yet very very insightful. By now, we all know the canon of Italian cooking. His book has been the best way to go beyond it. Part ode to the Emilian heritage, part carrying the torch of the Futurists.

If there is one thing I regret is not including both version of the recipe - that is both the traditional one, along the Bottura-fied one too.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part art book, part history of a recipe book and a very small part very complicated and unusual recipes. If nothing else, the cookbook gives the reader an appreciation for how long it might take to develop recipes like "Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano" even if most cooks could never create the same (the first paragraph of the recipe includes "aluminum timbales" and smoking ricotta cheese over cherry wood. Not to mention, you will need 24 month aged parm, 50 month aged parm, 36 month aged parm, 40 month aged parm and 30 month aged parm.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cookbook/memoir/food art compilation, written by a chef/poet/artist/philosopher. Eating at Osteria Francescana has been one of the best adventures of my life and this book is a perfect snapshot of our experience there. Not sure it would appeal to folks who haven't eaten there but if you have, it's a must read.

[Karlan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This oversized volume has an odd layout with surprisingly few appealing food or Modena photographs. The book does not compare to BLOOD, BONES AND BUTTER or MAMA'S HOMESICK PIE for those who want a memoir with recipes.

[Sanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

After eating at Osteria Francescana I had to have this book. It is so much more than a cookbook and I absolutely loved it.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Not a cookbook, per se. More like food porn. Great photos.