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The Food of Italy
by Sophie Braimbridge
List Price: £19.99

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Food of Italy is a bit deceptive. At first glance, with its functional title and no author's name on the cover, you might dismiss it as an anonymous piece of hackwork put together to fill a hole in a publisher's list. This would be a mistake: it is a substantial and highly attractive production that merits considerable attention. The apparent anonymity is the disguise of expert editorial teamwork; and the bluntness of the title reflects, in fact, comprehensive, encyclopaedic aims. It is intended to be a (or even "the") definitive guide to Italian food as it is really cooked and eaten from Sicily to the Alps, from antipasti to dolci. It is founded on extensive research in Italy (which must have been an absolute joy--the dust jacket offers a few pictures of the team disporting themselves in Sicily, Umbria and Venice).

The recipes, which are abundant and excellent, and include practically every well-known dish, have mostly been collected from chefs and food artisans; while the hundreds of location photographs, of food at all stages of preparation, of markets, shops and restaurants, provide a highly atmospheric accompaniment. Without offering quite the degree of native sophistication of a Marcella Hazan, The Food of Italy is a rich and authoritative source of information about Italian food and a well-stocked archive of authentic recipes. Worth lingering over. --
Robin Davidson

Available worldwide on-line from Amazon.com
Available on-line in the UK from Amazon.co.uk


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