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La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy
Fifty years ago, a group of Italian scholars gathered to discuss a problem: how to preserve traditional Italian cooking. They formed the Italian Academy of Cuisine to document classic recipes from every region. The academy’s more than seven thousand associates spread out to villages everywhere, interviewing grandmothers and farmers at their stoves, transcribing their recipes—many of which had never been documented before. This is the culmination of that research, an astounding feat—2,000 recipes that represent the patrimony of Italian country cooking. Each recipe is labeled with its region of origin, and it’s not just the ingredients but also the techniques that change with the geography. Sprinkled throughout are historical recipes that provide fascinating views into the folk culture of the past. There are no fancy flourishes here, and no shortcuts; this is true salt-of-the-earth cooking. The book is an excellent everyday source for easily achievable recipes, with such simple dishes as White Bean and Escarole Soup, Polenta with Tomato Sauce, and Chicken with Lemon and Capers. For ease of use there are four different indexes. La Cucina is an essential reference for every cook’s library.
928 pages, Hardcover
First published October 20, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 9, 2020
This bible of the Italian culinary tradition is now available in English, a must-have reference book for all who love cooking and eating the dishes of Il Bel Paese—Italy.
Lidia Bastianich
If you have been to Italy and still dream about the fish soup you had in Liguria, the peppery pasta of Rome, or the seafood risotto of Venice—not to worry—all these dishes can be found here. This book shows that trends may come and go but the tradition of great, heartwarming Italian food is here to stay.
Biba Caggiano
At a time when regional distinctions are blurring in Italian cuisine, the publication of La Cucina comes as a forceful and comprehensive reminder of the enormous diversity and honest goodness of home cooking, which has always been the true basis for the country’s gastronomy.
John Mariani [The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink]
Many of us feel we know the regional dishes of Italy, yet this bible of a book broadens our horizons to the unexpected. It will teach you the traditions and ingredients of Italy and an understanding of Italians’ approach to cooking—a book to truly treasure.
Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, The River Café
If you’ve traveled in Italy, you’ve probably wondered why, say, pasta with chickpeas is made differently in towns 10 kilometers apart, or why you have never found that spice cake you loved in Terni anywhere else. That’s because Italian cooking isn’t just regional, it’s microregional as La Cucina proves to fascinating effect. This book packs in so many recipes there’s no room for bucolic back stories, photos or detailed instructions… but what delicious recipes you’ll find… picking and preparing dishes at random will prove an enjoyable game for winter’s day.
New York Times Book Review
Lidia Bastianich
If you have been to Italy and still dream about the fish soup you had in Liguria, the peppery pasta of Rome, or the seafood risotto of Venice—not to worry—all these dishes can be found here. This book shows that trends may come and go but the tradition of great, heartwarming Italian food is here to stay.
Biba Caggiano
At a time when regional distinctions are blurring in Italian cuisine, the publication of La Cucina comes as a forceful and comprehensive reminder of the enormous diversity and honest goodness of home cooking, which has always been the true basis for the country’s gastronomy.
John Mariani [The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink]
Many of us feel we know the regional dishes of Italy, yet this bible of a book broadens our horizons to the unexpected. It will teach you the traditions and ingredients of Italy and an understanding of Italians’ approach to cooking—a book to truly treasure.
Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, The River Café
If you’ve traveled in Italy, you’ve probably wondered why, say, pasta with chickpeas is made differently in towns 10 kilometers apart, or why you have never found that spice cake you loved in Terni anywhere else. That’s because Italian cooking isn’t just regional, it’s microregional as La Cucina proves to fascinating effect. This book packs in so many recipes there’s no room for bucolic back stories, photos or detailed instructions… but what delicious recipes you’ll find… picking and preparing dishes at random will prove an enjoyable game for winter’s day.
New York Times Book Review
July 15, 2011
I really enjoyed paging through this Italian answer to the Joy of Cooking. Lots of good, simple recipes which really make clear the regional differences in Italian cuisine. Americans who think Italian food is spaghetti and meatballs and pizza should read this!
April 11, 2024
This is a real tome. I’m pretty sure it pulls together recipes from all sorts of sources, and because of that the style is all over the map, both geographically and temporally. The Walnut Cookies (Lazio), for example, appear to be a very old recipe and only barely updated to modern terminology. Had I realized this, I might have chosen not to make it: one of the things that drew me to the recipe to begin with was that it called for very little flour and lots of walnuts and honey.
This was mostly my own fault; I should have realized that the instructions to "Mix well to form a smooth dough and roll it out on a work surface to form a sheet about ½ inch thick” did not match the combination of ½ cup flour with ⅔ cup honey and 2 large egg whites. That would have clued me in that this is probably using the same terminology as the few 19th century cookbooks I’ve seen, where “Mix well to form a smooth dough and roll it out…” means to add enough extra flour to make it a rollable dough.
For these cookies, that meant probably another ½ to ¾ cup flour, which, of course, made the cookies less unique. (And hardly cookies: these are the sort of biscuits that would be called either cookies or cakes in older books.)
They’re not dipping cookies, neither with milk nor with coffee. They were especially good, however, paired with something very sweet, the Lemon Sorbet (Campania). This was a very simple recipe for sorbet that added a step I haven’t seen in sorbet recipes before: fold in beaten egg white.
That’s why it came to my attention. I hadn’t planned on testing this book using all sweets recipes, but the first recipe I made left me with four egg whites.
Like most sorbet recipes I’ve seen, it uses lemon zest and lemon juice, mixed with a syrup of sugar and water. Once the sorbet starts to freeze, the egg whites are beaten and folded in. It makes for a more frothy and creamy sorbet that’s amazing. It was the highlight of the three recipes I tried.
The first recipe I made was a Pear Pie (Piemonte) for Easter. It uses a “Short Pastry” for the pie crust, which includes not just flour, butter, and lots of sugar, but also egg yolk and Marsala. I think the pastry was better than the filling! I might end up using it more often than the pie.
Which is saying a lot, because the filling was also very good—and unique. The pears are pre-cooked in Barolo (or other hearty red wine); since I didn’t have Barolo on hand, I used a Cabernet Sauvignon (it was literally my last bottle of wine; I need to get to Spec’s). The instructions end with “serve warm”, and it is necessary. It calls for a lot of wine, two cups worth, so that the pie has an oddly sour flavor when eaten cold. Microwaving the slice for a half minute or thereabouts enhances the sweetness and the pear flavor while removing the sourness.
Pretty much every page of this book has a recipe I’d like to try. Some of the recipes I’ve highlighted are Sicilian Seafood Rice Balls (Arancini al Sapore di Mare), Fried Sage Leaves (Friuli-Venezia Giulia), Potato and Pasta Soup (Abruzzo) that includes a light flavoring of saffron, and Fried Sauerkraut Ravioli (Alto Adige) flavored with cumin and juniper.
Among the sweets, there are Sardinian Orange Slices that are like candied orange peel but then mixed with almond paste before cutting into shapes. But most interesting are the Chocolate-Stuffed Eggs (Basilicata), that are, basically, deviled eggs but with cocoa and amaretto for the flavoring. I don’t have any idea what to expect from this, but I must make them.
Like the French Larousse Gastronomique—which continued to include recipes for cocaine in the English version long after cocaine was illegal in English-speaking countries—the translators made little accommodation for time or place when translating the recipes. While they appear to have replaced oven descriptors such as moderate or hot oven (the Walnut Cookie recipe almost certainly was old enough that it used them rather than a temperature) that’s about it. For example, there’s a recipe for Puglia Meatballs that call for “1 lb ground horsemeat”.
And while there’s very little editorial matter in the book, one that stood out to me was the recipe for Foie Gras (Lombardia):
My impression (trying to) read Italian newspapers is that Italians are—rightfully, in my opinion—concerned about the debasement of one of the world’s great cuisines, which that is a symptom of.
There are two indexes, one by region and one by principal ingredient (which shows three recipes for horsemeat, two stews and the above-mentioned meatballs). There is no index by title, although as long as you can remember a principle ingredient that shouldn’t matter too much.
There is, as I said, almost no editorial matter. There’s a one-page preface, a one-page introduction, and five-pages, dictionary-style, about what some of the ingredients mean, such as what style of vinegar to use. Some of the recipes have a short red explanation in front of them, such as:
Or as short as:
This book looks to be a lot of fun, and so far, has been.
This was mostly my own fault; I should have realized that the instructions to "Mix well to form a smooth dough and roll it out on a work surface to form a sheet about ½ inch thick” did not match the combination of ½ cup flour with ⅔ cup honey and 2 large egg whites. That would have clued me in that this is probably using the same terminology as the few 19th century cookbooks I’ve seen, where “Mix well to form a smooth dough and roll it out…” means to add enough extra flour to make it a rollable dough.
For these cookies, that meant probably another ½ to ¾ cup flour, which, of course, made the cookies less unique. (And hardly cookies: these are the sort of biscuits that would be called either cookies or cakes in older books.)
They’re not dipping cookies, neither with milk nor with coffee. They were especially good, however, paired with something very sweet, the Lemon Sorbet (Campania). This was a very simple recipe for sorbet that added a step I haven’t seen in sorbet recipes before: fold in beaten egg white.
That’s why it came to my attention. I hadn’t planned on testing this book using all sweets recipes, but the first recipe I made left me with four egg whites.
Like most sorbet recipes I’ve seen, it uses lemon zest and lemon juice, mixed with a syrup of sugar and water. Once the sorbet starts to freeze, the egg whites are beaten and folded in. It makes for a more frothy and creamy sorbet that’s amazing. It was the highlight of the three recipes I tried.
The first recipe I made was a Pear Pie (Piemonte) for Easter. It uses a “Short Pastry” for the pie crust, which includes not just flour, butter, and lots of sugar, but also egg yolk and Marsala. I think the pastry was better than the filling! I might end up using it more often than the pie.
Which is saying a lot, because the filling was also very good—and unique. The pears are pre-cooked in Barolo (or other hearty red wine); since I didn’t have Barolo on hand, I used a Cabernet Sauvignon (it was literally my last bottle of wine; I need to get to Spec’s). The instructions end with “serve warm”, and it is necessary. It calls for a lot of wine, two cups worth, so that the pie has an oddly sour flavor when eaten cold. Microwaving the slice for a half minute or thereabouts enhances the sweetness and the pear flavor while removing the sourness.
Pretty much every page of this book has a recipe I’d like to try. Some of the recipes I’ve highlighted are Sicilian Seafood Rice Balls (Arancini al Sapore di Mare), Fried Sage Leaves (Friuli-Venezia Giulia), Potato and Pasta Soup (Abruzzo) that includes a light flavoring of saffron, and Fried Sauerkraut Ravioli (Alto Adige) flavored with cumin and juniper.
Among the sweets, there are Sardinian Orange Slices that are like candied orange peel but then mixed with almond paste before cutting into shapes. But most interesting are the Chocolate-Stuffed Eggs (Basilicata), that are, basically, deviled eggs but with cocoa and amaretto for the flavoring. I don’t have any idea what to expect from this, but I must make them.
Like the French Larousse Gastronomique—which continued to include recipes for cocaine in the English version long after cocaine was illegal in English-speaking countries—the translators made little accommodation for time or place when translating the recipes. While they appear to have replaced oven descriptors such as moderate or hot oven (the Walnut Cookie recipe almost certainly was old enough that it used them rather than a temperature) that’s about it. For example, there’s a recipe for Puglia Meatballs that call for “1 lb ground horsemeat”.
And while there’s very little editorial matter in the book, one that stood out to me was the recipe for Foie Gras (Lombardia):
This dish is typical of the territory of Cream, where, sad to say, the local raising of geese for making foie gras has been reduced to the minimum. Serve with polenta or on mashed potatoes.
My impression (trying to) read Italian newspapers is that Italians are—rightfully, in my opinion—concerned about the debasement of one of the world’s great cuisines, which that is a symptom of.
There are two indexes, one by region and one by principal ingredient (which shows three recipes for horsemeat, two stews and the above-mentioned meatballs). There is no index by title, although as long as you can remember a principle ingredient that shouldn’t matter too much.
There is, as I said, almost no editorial matter. There’s a one-page preface, a one-page introduction, and five-pages, dictionary-style, about what some of the ingredients mean, such as what style of vinegar to use. Some of the recipes have a short red explanation in front of them, such as:
This dish is typical of Cogne. A version of this dish is served for wedding lunches in the Alta Valle (Valdigne), but in place of the beef broth it is made with a thick vegetable soup prepared a day in advance.
Or as short as:
This dish is typical of Romagna.
This book looks to be a lot of fun, and so far, has been.
June 4, 2022
A four, because this is an old-school city phone-book sized behemoth of true Italian legitimacy (you can use it as a booster seat!), and it has many, many recipes... but honestly, it would otherwise be about a 3 for me, since all the best Italian recipes I have I get straight from the source (my beloved neighbour and my coworkers!), OR, from Marcella Hazan (who no real Italian has heard of, but I'm sure most U.S. cooks have!).
It doesn't have Baci di Dama or many other sweets and desserts. And it also doesn't have Ribollita that my tuscan coworker from Firenze (Florence) insisted I try (I actually didn't think much of it, but it's proper comfort food for her!). Word of warning: if you are in Florence, they have a tripe specialty (street food, sandwich) called Lampredotto, which is best described as "challenging". I will eat just about anything, once. Hand on heart - my dog wouldn't eat it for me when I passed it to her. And it was meat based. So, yeah. I felt compelled to warn. Give it a miss, have a local present to show you the BEST vendor, or at least be prepared to donate it to someone who can stomach stomach-sandwich.
A stonking great volume for fans of Italian cuisine, but it has (regrettably) not become worn through use in spite of my owning it for years. In contrast, Marcella's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is positively crusty with stains and splashes.
It doesn't have Baci di Dama or many other sweets and desserts. And it also doesn't have Ribollita that my tuscan coworker from Firenze (Florence) insisted I try (I actually didn't think much of it, but it's proper comfort food for her!). Word of warning: if you are in Florence, they have a tripe specialty (street food, sandwich) called Lampredotto, which is best described as "challenging". I will eat just about anything, once. Hand on heart - my dog wouldn't eat it for me when I passed it to her. And it was meat based. So, yeah. I felt compelled to warn. Give it a miss, have a local present to show you the BEST vendor, or at least be prepared to donate it to someone who can stomach stomach-sandwich.
A stonking great volume for fans of Italian cuisine, but it has (regrettably) not become worn through use in spite of my owning it for years. In contrast, Marcella's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is positively crusty with stains and splashes.
April 30, 2018
I love big cookbooks, and this is probably the biggest in the 641's. Encyclopedic in scope, this book is the ultimate guide to Italian cooking. As a cookbook to your average home cook, I find it a bit lacking. For one, there are absolutely no photos. Second, it calls for some fairly exotic ingredients that may be unavailable or prohibitively expensive for some of us.
It was quite interesting to read. This has to be the first cookbook I've seen that calls for donkey or horse meat.
Hardcore fans of authentic Italian cooking should absolutely pick this up.
It was quite interesting to read. This has to be the first cookbook I've seen that calls for donkey or horse meat.
Hardcore fans of authentic Italian cooking should absolutely pick this up.
May 7, 2021
Really disappointed, expensive, poorly put together, cheap paper, hard to read and impossible to find anything. Recipes are hard to follow, Typesetting is annoying, I could go on and on at how disappointed I was with this 'cookbook' And heavy!
April 24, 2011
This is the Italian version of Julia Child's French cookbook(s). There are many recipes that I wouldn't go near...donkey stew...but the depth and bredth of the offerings as well as the bits of history about the regional offerings made this a must read (and use) for me. There are so many recipes that I wanted to cook that I had to make a choice between reading them and cooking them. Reading won. It's easier. I don't know if I will invest the money to buy the book, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in real Italian cooking.
August 12, 2016
This book is of a similar size and design to
The Silver Spoon
. Incredibly, there seems to be very little overlap in recipes and, although I reach for that other book first, this one is still an interesting supplementary volume.
Read
July 27, 2011A wide sweeping and monumentally encyclopedic tome of Italian cooking that will keep you occupied with new things to try for decades on end
Read
August 19, 2011Haven't had a chance to give this one a workout yet. Looks impressive on my cookbook shelf.
November 16, 2012
AMAZING!!! Italian cooking bible! Everything you could imagine and by region! Its a dream!
February 15, 2014
This is by far the best cookbook I've ever read, and I have read MANY.
Read
January 6, 2010Happy cooking ahead. Mangia bene!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews