Books : The Classic 1000 Italian Recipes

Rating: - Superb
This recipe book is a superb addition to anyone's culinary library - clearly not every recipe will suit every person but it is inconceivable that you would not find a significant number of useful recipes in here and even if you found just one nugget, then considering the price, it would be well worth it.

The variety of recipes in any of the 1000 series is simply staggering - to say you are stuck for choice is an understatement - but this particular one includes a great many vegetarian dishes too.

Ok, so there are no photographs but against that, the books don't cost a fortune either and they are compact.

You really cannot go wrong with any of these recipe books and when you consider they cost little more than 1 issue of pretty much any food magazine, well, they truly are an absolute bargain.

Buy this one, buy them all - you won't be disappointed.

---

Rating: - If I see ONE MORE Italian cookbook with a red, white and green cover....
This is the `Does exactly what it says on the tin' of Italian cookbooks. No anecdotes about uncle Guiseppe and his hand picked goat's milk olive drenched tomatoes, or whatever. Just 1000 recipes that work. In amongst the `usual suspects' you will find some real gems, such as chicken and courgette pie, Roman kidneys and mussel soup with saffron. A whole chapter on veal (so ner-ner-na-ner-ner to the `veal police' who insist ALL veal is the product of torture, the food of Satan himself). Also, in contradiction to one of the other reviews here, very many recipes I clearly remember my grandmother cooking for me as a child, such as `Tuoni e Lampo' (thunder and lightning) and Rape alla Trentina (trentino turnips) how authentic do you want it ?

Reliance on olive oil in cooking is a southern Italian thing, and the presence of large quantities of butter (yum !) in recipes is not indicative of said recipes being less than authentic.

I love this book. And, given that I haven't even tried more than a handful of the recipes yet, that's quite impressive. As a trained chef, (ooh.... get her !) I have to say that the conversion of quantities is very hit-and-miss. The main reason for this is that the quantities are given in 3 ways, metric, imperial and american (for the benefit of our cousins who haven't learned to count above five, or use scales yet). I would strongly recommend that you pick ONE system and stick with it within recipes. As the recipes are clearly collected from genuine Italians, the obvious choice is to stick to metric. Having glanced through the book whilst writing this, I notice a couple of glaring inconsistencies in measure conversion...... one pint isn't 600ml even in a dyslexic American's kitchen !

Buy this book and you will be kept entertained and well fed for a long while. Then begins the quest for the true taste of Italy, for which there are as many cookbooks as there are Italian Grandmothers. Happy hunting.

---

Rating: - I am not sure...
This book is surely very rich and inspiring, covering both simple and elaborate dishes.
I wonder, however, about the heavy use of butter in many of the recipes. I lived in Tuscany for 5 years, and I know that the Italians of south and central Italy are pretty much obsessed with extra virgin olive oil. This book, when it does not use butter, use often "oil", that can be understood as "vegetable oil", and this does not sound "authentic" to me.

---

Rating: - Authentic, interesting and a must..........
If you are a lover of Italian food then this book is a must for yourkitchen bookshelf. Page after page of mouth-watering recipes that the keencook will be longing to try out. Few of the recipes will be familiar, afact which I love about about this book. Amongst the gems are dishes suchas Champagne scallops, Baked flatfish with sherry butter, Lamb withrosemary & raspberry sauce and Chicken with fig stuffing. Got youinterested yet ? Well there are also great recipes for vegetables, snacks,breads, sauces and desserts etc. Vegetarians will be happy with the numberof recipes which apply to them, meat and fish lovers will drool and Ithink the 'not so keen cook' will like the simplicity of quite a lot ofthe dishes.
There are a few colour illustrations in this thickpaperback but not enough if you like plenty of photography. My only gripeis that one recipe I tried had obviously never been tested.
To sum up - if your idea of heaven is getting floury with 'Palermo pizzapie' or splattered with 'Tagliatelle with porcini & cognac' then this maybe the book you are missing.