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In Nonna's Kitchen: Recipes and Traditions from Italy's Grandmothers
Integrating anecdotes, folk wisdom, and recipes into a delectable cookbook, a collection of authentic Italian dishes represents the best in traditional Italian cuisine, featuring savory breads, fruit preserves, sauces, meat dishes, pastas, desserts, and more. $35,000 ad/promo. Tour.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Carol Field
22 books7 followersCarol Field was an American cookbook author. She wrote about Italy and Italian food since 1972. Her television appearances included being featured with Mario Batali on his series and and baking bread with Julia Child on her series.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 5, 2008
This is the second of Carol Field's books that I've read (the first one I picked up was Celebrating Italy) and her hallmarks seem to be meticulous, yet loving, research and a writing style that manages to evoke the sights, sounds, smells, textures, and flavors of Italian cooking to a mouth-watering degree.
In Nonna's Kitchen is a cookbook that Field researched by going to Italy and culling time-honored, taste-tested recipes from several authentic Italian grandmothers. I have not yet tried any of the recipes, but reading them feels like good eatin'. I usually dislike cookbooks that don't feature a picture of every recipe. In Nonna's Kitchen contains no pictures of food, but the recipes and Field's writing on Italian cuisine and culture make pictures unnecessary.
Ah, yes, culture. It's easy to see Field not so much as a food writer, but as an eager and loving student of Italian culture. She does much honor to the Italian grandmothers who contributed to this book by providing a lengthy, colorful profile of each of them. In these profiles, the nonne discuss how they learned to cook, what their lives have been like, how cooking has changed over the courses of their lifetimes, etc. In addition to these formal profiles, Field includes little anecdotes about several of the grandmothers within the recipes they provided.
These are not your stereotypical black-shawled, muttering Italian grandmothers, either. They range in age from 40s-90s, and a good many of them are classically beautiful, stylish women. All of them, however, are quintessentially Italian in that they place great importance on good, simple food made from the freshest local ingredients.
I plan to buy copies of In Nonna's Kitchen and Celebrating Italy for myself; they're too good not to own. Carol Field now has the distinction of being my favorite food writer!
In Nonna's Kitchen is a cookbook that Field researched by going to Italy and culling time-honored, taste-tested recipes from several authentic Italian grandmothers. I have not yet tried any of the recipes, but reading them feels like good eatin'. I usually dislike cookbooks that don't feature a picture of every recipe. In Nonna's Kitchen contains no pictures of food, but the recipes and Field's writing on Italian cuisine and culture make pictures unnecessary.
Ah, yes, culture. It's easy to see Field not so much as a food writer, but as an eager and loving student of Italian culture. She does much honor to the Italian grandmothers who contributed to this book by providing a lengthy, colorful profile of each of them. In these profiles, the nonne discuss how they learned to cook, what their lives have been like, how cooking has changed over the courses of their lifetimes, etc. In addition to these formal profiles, Field includes little anecdotes about several of the grandmothers within the recipes they provided.
These are not your stereotypical black-shawled, muttering Italian grandmothers, either. They range in age from 40s-90s, and a good many of them are classically beautiful, stylish women. All of them, however, are quintessentially Italian in that they place great importance on good, simple food made from the freshest local ingredients.
I plan to buy copies of In Nonna's Kitchen and Celebrating Italy for myself; they're too good not to own. Carol Field now has the distinction of being my favorite food writer!
May 3, 2008
I'd call this Italian comfort food. Everything I've made from here has been quite yummmmmy.
June 18, 2020
I only read the intro which was a short general history of cooking in Italy. I found it very interesting and inspiring.
May 24, 2026
Nope, it's not a glossy cookbook. It's so much more. In Nonna’s Kitchen is an act of cultural preservation.
Carol Field understood something essential about Italian cooking long before “authenticity” became a marketing buzzword: Italian food is profoundly regional, profoundly familial, and profoundly tied to memory, scarcity, migration, ritual, and women’s labor.
The genius of this book lies in its specificity.
Field traveled throughout Italy documenting the cooking of actual grandmothers—women whose recipes often existed nowhere in written form and whose knowledge had been transmitted through gesture, repetition, touch, instinct, and oral tradition rather than standardized measurements. The result captures an Italy that was already beginning to disappear.
And the book understands that food is never just food.
Every recipe carries geography, class history, agricultural reality, climate, economics, religion, migration patterns, family structure, and local identity inside it. One feels the enormous diversity of Italy region by region: Emilia-Romagna is not Sicily; Veneto is not Calabria; Liguria is not Puglia. The culinary distinctions are cultural distinctions.
Field’s prose is also wonderfully alive—warm, observant, curious, intelligent, and deeply respectful without becoming anthropological or romanticized. The nonne emerge as fully dimensional people: opinionated, skilled, practical, funny, proud, stubborn, generous, exacting.
The recipes themselves are superb because they arise from lived domestic knowledge rather than restaurant performance or trend-driven adaptation.
This is one of those food books that expands one’s understanding of history, gender, immigration, labor, regionalism, and cultural continuity while simultaneously making you desperately hungry.
MY RATING PHILOSOPHY:
★★★★★ = Exceptional. A book that teaches me something new, reexamines or illuminates overlooked people or histories, expands my understanding of the world, or achieves unusual artistic originality and lasting impact. A title I actively and enthusiastically recommend to others.
★★★★ = Excellent. Strong craft, compelling storytelling, memorable characters, emotional or intellectual engagement, even if I didn't necessarily learn something new or find it elevating of overlooked or underexamined topics/events/people. A book I would readily recommend.
★★★ = Enjoyable and worthwhile. A solid reading experience with clear strengths, though more commercially predictable, uneven, or limited in originality, complexity, or execution than my four-star reads. A book, if asked, I'd say, "I liked it well enough."
★★ = A meaningful miss. Some compelling elements or ideas may exist, but the execution substantially faltered.
★ = Did not work for me on the level of craft, coherence, readability, originality, or emotional/intellectual engagement.
Carol Field understood something essential about Italian cooking long before “authenticity” became a marketing buzzword: Italian food is profoundly regional, profoundly familial, and profoundly tied to memory, scarcity, migration, ritual, and women’s labor.
The genius of this book lies in its specificity.
Field traveled throughout Italy documenting the cooking of actual grandmothers—women whose recipes often existed nowhere in written form and whose knowledge had been transmitted through gesture, repetition, touch, instinct, and oral tradition rather than standardized measurements. The result captures an Italy that was already beginning to disappear.
And the book understands that food is never just food.
Every recipe carries geography, class history, agricultural reality, climate, economics, religion, migration patterns, family structure, and local identity inside it. One feels the enormous diversity of Italy region by region: Emilia-Romagna is not Sicily; Veneto is not Calabria; Liguria is not Puglia. The culinary distinctions are cultural distinctions.
Field’s prose is also wonderfully alive—warm, observant, curious, intelligent, and deeply respectful without becoming anthropological or romanticized. The nonne emerge as fully dimensional people: opinionated, skilled, practical, funny, proud, stubborn, generous, exacting.
The recipes themselves are superb because they arise from lived domestic knowledge rather than restaurant performance or trend-driven adaptation.
This is one of those food books that expands one’s understanding of history, gender, immigration, labor, regionalism, and cultural continuity while simultaneously making you desperately hungry.
MY RATING PHILOSOPHY:
★★★★★ = Exceptional. A book that teaches me something new, reexamines or illuminates overlooked people or histories, expands my understanding of the world, or achieves unusual artistic originality and lasting impact. A title I actively and enthusiastically recommend to others.
★★★★ = Excellent. Strong craft, compelling storytelling, memorable characters, emotional or intellectual engagement, even if I didn't necessarily learn something new or find it elevating of overlooked or underexamined topics/events/people. A book I would readily recommend.
★★★ = Enjoyable and worthwhile. A solid reading experience with clear strengths, though more commercially predictable, uneven, or limited in originality, complexity, or execution than my four-star reads. A book, if asked, I'd say, "I liked it well enough."
★★ = A meaningful miss. Some compelling elements or ideas may exist, but the execution substantially faltered.
★ = Did not work for me on the level of craft, coherence, readability, originality, or emotional/intellectual engagement.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews