Italian Family Dining: Recipes, Menus, and Memories of Meals with a Great American Food Family

by Edward Giobbi

Book Overview

The author of the beloved classic Italian Family Cooking teams up with his daughter for a book that is part recipe treasury, part family memoir--and totally irresistible James Beard Award winner Ed... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594861269
• ISBN13: 9781594861260
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 1.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.7" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Fabulous recipes for Italian cuisine lovers with adventurous palates

The first thing that struck me about this book is how beautifully designed it is. It's quite substantial, a good size without being unweildy. It is printed on good-quality cream colored paper with dark green ink, and nearly every page features hand-drawn illustrations. However, the proof is in the recipes. The premise of this book is that "Italian meals are structured in a way that keeps family and friends at the table." Italians sit down together to eat; a custom that is rapidly becoming obsolete in our busy American lifestyle. Viewed that way, cuisine because one of the most important ways to spend quality time with your family. The book is in itself a family affair, a father-daughter collaboration. Italians acknowledge that food tastes best when prepared with fresh, seasonal ingredients and to that end the book is structured around the four seasons, featuring recipes and menus for spring, summer, fall and winter. It also features special recipes and menus for the major holidays of each season. There are many other menus build around themes such as "A Quiet Fall Dinner," "A Simple Summer Dinner for Company," or "A Sexy Winter Dinner." The recipes are fabulous, although I was challenged by many of the ingredients. A good many of the recipes called for ingredients I simply cannot get at my local supermarket, such as tripe, fresh morels, onion blossoms, cardoons, puntarelle or cranberry beans. Some of these things I have never even heard of before! However, adverturous palates with access to gourmet food stores and farmers' markets will delight in the recipes that will allow them to make use of the variety that is available to them. There were enough recipes that didn't call for more exotic ingredients that I didn't have any trouble putting this book to good use. One thing is for certain, this is no mere book listing different ways to prepare pasta! Some of the recipes in the book are: Leek and Chestnut Soup, Butternut Squash and Rice Soup, Farfalle with Green Tomatoes, Eggplant Rolls, Chicken with Lobster, Duck Baked in Salt, Linguine with Blue Crab Sauce, Spaghettini with Maine Shrimp, Risotto with Crabmeat, Parchment-Wrapped Sausage with Fennel and Onions, Orange-Clove Souffle, Pannettone Bread Pudding, Lemon Sorbet with Spumante, Jaques Pepin's Rhubarb Galette, Strawberry-Rhubarb Coffee Cake. Adventurous chefs wanting to try something new, healthy, and at the same time homey in a uniquely Italian way will delight in exploring this excellent cookbook.

Italian Food a Family Would Fix

The statistics for things like heart disease are significantly lower in Italy than they are in the United States. This comes as a surprise since the general concept we have of Italian food is that it is high on foods that we don't normally consider healthy. This book, on the other hand, in on the foods that Italian families have on a daily basis. It features fresh seasonal vegetables, small but reasonably sized portions and only on special occasions a light desert. There's a lot of fish. Where oil is used, it's olive oil. And surprisingly, these dishes are easy and fast to prepare. The Italian mother is busy also. She wants things that don're require her to spend every afternoon in the kitchen. Ed Giobbi is a James Beard Award winner as a culinary professional. He worked on this book with his daughter Eugenia Giobbi Bone and in addition to the recipies shares warm family memories and a philosophy of good times together.