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Overview
Italians are passionate about their food and love to celebrate together. At annual village festivals the food is cooked in mammoth proportions, the cobblestone streets become jammed with costumed processions and happy crowds sit and enjoy a communal meal that is a ritual of connection and neighborly love.In Celebrating Italy, Carol Field takes the reader to these exuberant civic feasts and highlights their very special and ancient recipes. The result is one of the most remarkable cookbooks ever written, for in exploring festivals, Field has opened a bright new window on Italian culture and its sumptuous food.
Recipes include the victory dinner of Risotto Fratacchione -- red onions and sausages eaten after Siena's famous Palio; the Sorbir d'Agnoli -- stuffed pasta in wine-spiked broth that the Mantuans eat on Christmas Day, and Pane di Cena's sweet milk bread rolls, which is made to last all through Easter Week in Sicily.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
In this encyclopedic effort, IACP/Tastemaker Award-winner Field ( The Italian Baker ) takes readers on a fascinating culinary tour: a trip through Italy that in form is part guidebook, part cookbook and ``culinary archaeology'' at its best. Her Italy is a place of fairs, festivals,stet and historic and religious hoopla that transform the mundane into the magical: ``Festivals are a form of communion . . . not only for Italians but for Americans who happen upon them.'' Almost invariably, festivals are gastronomically obsessed, ``tied to the calendar and to the countryside.'' Field lures the reader to feasts of seafood, polenta, rice,stet and strawberries--even a Passover seder in Rome. And, from Tuscan grape harvest sweetbread (schiacciata all'uva)sic to creamy pumpkin-flavored rice (riso e zucca)sic and a Christmas soup of bread and cheese (li straccettisic ), she presents a host of unusual recipes. While they are organized by celebration, many are also incorporated into the author's modern menu suggestions. BOMC HomeStyle main selection; author tour. (Dec.)Library Journal
This fascinating new work from the author of the well-regarded The Italian Baker ( LJ 11/15/85) combines cultural history, folklore, and food, as Field explores some of the more unusual festivals that take place every year in Italy. These celebrate religious holidays, individual cities, pagan traditions, or, often, food: the Fair of Pecorino Cheese, the Gnocchi Bacchanalia. Regardless of the occasion, however, each has its special dishes. Field's lengthy descriptions of the festivals provide an intimate view of the proceedings, and her recipes include many unusual regional specialties and, not surprisingly, a wide array of delicious breads and pastries. Recommended for travel, folklore, and cookery collections.Book Details
Published
February 5, 1998
Publisher
New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 1997.
Pages
544
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780060977221