The Italian Way

Outside of Italy, the country’s culture and its food appear to be essentially synonymous. And indeed, as The Italian Way makes clear, preparing, cooking, and eating food play a central role in the daily activities of Italians from all walks of life. In this beautifully illustrated book, Douglas Harper and Patrizia Faccioli present a fascinating and colorful look at the Italian table. The Italian Way focuses on two dozen families in the city of Bologna, elegantly weaving together Harper’s outsider perspective with Faccioli’s intimate knowledge of the local customs. The authors interview and observe these families as they go shopping for ingredients, cook together, and argue over who has to wash the dishes. Throughout, the authors elucidate the guiding principle of the Italian table—a delicate balance between the structure of tradition and the joy of improvisation. With its bite-sized history of food in Italy, including the five-hundred-year-old story of the country’s cookbooks, and Harper’s mouth-watering photographs, The Italian Way is a rich repast—insightful, informative, and inviting.

For All Students Ideal for a variety of course, this valuable handbook helps students understand how people from every corner of Italy think, do business, and act in their daily lives.

One woman's story of finding beauty, and herself--and a practical guide to living a better life, the Italian way! Kamin Mohammadi, a magazine editor in London, should have been on top of the world. But after heartbreak and loneliness, the stress of her "dream life" was ruining her physical and mental health. Gifted a ticket to freedom--a redundancy package and the offer of a friend's apartment in Florence--Kamin took a giant leap. It did not take her long to notice how differently her new Italian neighbors approached life: enjoying themselves, taking their time to eat and drink, taking their lives at a deliberately slower pace. Filled with wonderful characters--from the local bartender/barista who becomes her love advisor, to the plumbers who fix her heating and teach her to make pasta al pomodoro--here is a mantra for savoring the beauty and color of every day that Italians have followed for generations, a guide to the slow life for busy people, a story of finding love (and self-love) in unlikely places, and an evocative account of a year living an Italian life.

This best selelr collection of preserving recipes is also an engaging mix of memories and anecdotes of childhood and travel. It oozes with a love and oneness with the rich and varied tapestry that Italy is today. As you follow the recipes, recall and remember the brave pioneers that travelled to Australia to give us a wonderful life through a heritage that stretches back to the Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Normans, Australians and the French. With each new wave came new skills in preserving food.

Winner of the International Association of Culinary Association (IACP) Award The indispensable cookbook for genuine Italian sauces and the traditional pasta shapes that go with them. Pasta is so universally popular in the United States that it can justifiably be called an American food. This book makes the case for keeping it Italian with recipes for sauces and soups as cooked in Italian homes today. There are authentic versions of such favorites as carbonara, bolognese, marinara, and Alfredo, as well as plenty of unusual but no less traditional sauces, based on roasts, ribs, rabbit, clams, eggplant, arugula, and mushrooms, to name but a few. Anyone who cooks or eats pasta needs this book. The straightforward recipes are easy enough for the inexperienced, but even professional chefs will grasp the elegance of their simplicity. Cooking pasta the Italian way means: Keep your eye on the pot, not the clock. Respect tradition, but don’t be a slave to it. Choose a compatible pasta shape for your sauce or soup, but remember they aren’t matched by computer. (And that angel hair goes with broth, not sauce.) Use the best ingredients you can find—and you can find plenty on the Internet. Resist the urge to embellish, add, or substitute. But minor variations usually enhance a dish. How much salt? Don’t ask, taste! Serving and eating pasta the Italian way means: Use a spoon for soup, not for twirling spaghetti. Learn to twirl; never cut. Never add too much cheese, and often add none at all. Toss the cheese and pasta before adding the sauce. Warm the dishes.Serve pasta alone. The salad comes after. To be perfectly proper, use a plate, not a bowl. The authors are reluctant to compromise because they know how good well-made pasta can be. But they keep their sense of humor and are sympathetic to all well-intentioned readers.

It’s time to embrace the Italian way of life...

A cultural and culinary celebration of everything that makes Italian cuisine great, from Rome’s resident gastronomic expert After a lifetime of living and eating in Rome, Elizabeth Minchilli is an expert on the city's cuisine. While she’s proud to share everything she knows about Rome, she now wants to show her devoted readers that the rest of Italy is a culinary treasure trove just waiting to be explored. Far from being a monolithic gastronomic culture, each region of Italy offers its own specialties. While fava beans mean one thing in Rome, they mean an entirely different thing in Puglia. Risotto in a Roman trattoria? Don’t even consider it. Visit Venice and not eat cichetti? Unthinkable. Eating My Way Through Italy, celebrates the differences in the world’s favorite cuisine. Divided geographically, Eating My Way Through Italy looks at all the different aspects of Italian food culture. Whether it’s pizza in Naples, deep fried calamari in Venice, anchovies in Amalfi, an elegant dinner in Milan, gathering and cooking capers on Pantelleria, or hunting for truffles in Umbria each chapter includes, not just anecdotes, personal stories and practical advice, but also recipes that explore the cultural and historical references that make these subjects timeless. For anyone who follows Elizabeth on her blog Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome, read her previous book Eating Rome, or used her brilliant phone app Eat Italy to dine well, Eating My Way Through Italy, is a must.