Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy

by Judith Barrett and Judi Barrett

From thick, rich minestrone with beans and vegetables, to delectable chickpea fritters, here are 124 easy-to-prepare, delicious, authentic favorites-in the only cookbook devoted solely to the glories... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1579547249
• ISBN13: 9781579547240
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 9.2" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful cookbook!

I have a lot of cookbooks, but this one became an instant favorite and I've made many of the recipes. A wonderful overview of Italian bean recipes with appetizers, salads, soups, pasta dishes, grain dishes and beans cooked with meats, fish and seafood. Barrett provides a background on beans and other essential ingredients including sources, basic cooking guides and the philosophy behind Italian bean cuisine. The recipes contain a few simple, fresh ingredients, are very quick and easy to assemble and most can cook without much attention. The recipes make wonderful use of fresh herbs and vegetables as well as a wide range of beans, lentils, chickpeas, etc. A great way to create exciting, delicious, inexpensive low fat meals with or without meat. Love this book!

Fagioli The Bean Cuisine of Italy

I was given this book as a gift a few years ago. I love the recipes and so do my family and friends! My son recently moved into his own apartment while in grad school and I ordered this book for him, which he uses often. I highly recommend this book for those who like to include legumes in their diet..so healthy for you!

A perfectly delightful book of Italian Bean Recipes. Super

`Fagioli' by professional cookbook writer Judith Barrett is quite clearly subtitled `The Bean Cuisine of Italy', as it is all about cooking with Italian beans. This book immediately succeeds at the first and most important task of a special purpose cookbook in that it has made be really care about and be interested in its subject. It accomplishes this feat first by being a very attractively designed hardcover book with a very well sewn binding which nicely lays flat where you want it to. Next, it's modest artwork and typography complements its presentation so that it is simply a pleasure to read. No eye strain here. Congratulations to the Rodale Press for packaging a very nice volume. Finally, the all the introductory material is accurate to the best of my knowledge. There are no lingering myths about the risks of salting cooking beans, there is no doctrinaire approach to having to soak beans, and there is a tolerance, with warnings, about using a pressure cooker to cook beans, as the sine qua non of bean cookery is like barbecue, `low and slow'. The only hint of elitism I detected was the statement that somehow, the Italians have mastered a secret to a tasty cooking of beans which is beyond we poor New World neophytes who have been cooking beans for less than 400 years. I will concede that the knowledge of good bean cooking is probably a bit harder to find outside of Boston, but I think we have the hang of it. One of the most liberating revelations was the fact that Italians actually cook a lot with dried beans imported from the New World, as North America exports much more than it consumes, and Italy consumes all it produces, so no dried Italian beans sit on the grocery shelves beyond a year of harvest, especially as date of production is stamped on the bean packages just as we do for bread and milk. While my hero, Alton Brown has remarked that bean cooking is remarkably uniform, far more consistent across species than with grains, he certainly did not take into account the variety of beans covered by this book, which deals with at least fifteen (15) different species of beans, some of which have no substitutes if the real thing is not available. Fortunately, the unique varieties of beans, the chickpea and the fava are commonly available in the United States. Every other type of bean has more than one commonly available substitution, which is important since there are some beans which are available only in Italy and which do not travel well. The recipes are organized in exactly the way one would expect from an Italian cookery subject, with chapters on: Primi Piatti, divided into sections on Antipasti, Insalate, and Contorni (Side Dishes) Zuppa di Fagioli, divided into sections on Minestre, Zuppe (Thick Soups), and Passali (Creamy Soups) Pasta e Fagioli, of course Secondi Piatti, divided into Fagioli e Farinacci (Grains), Fagioli con Carne (Meat), Fagioli con Selvaggina (Poultry), and Fagioli con Pesce (Seafood) I have never, up until tod