Buonopane - The North End Italian cookbook: the bestselling classic featuring even more authentic family recipes

Marguerite DiMino Buonopane is a former restaurant chef-owner and host of the legendary luncheons at the old North End Union, a nonprofit community settlement house. For thirty years she taught cooking classes in the North End, and she writes for the magazines Scene and On-Tray.

Think of Bostons North End and you will envision great food and bountiful Italian markets lining the streets filled with strings of thick sausage, great wheels of cheese, bushels of seafood, slabs of dark chocolate, and mounds of fresh fruits and vegetables. For generations, the cooks of this Italian-American neighborhood have transformed these wonderful ingredients into memorable meals.

For more than thirty years, Marguerite DiMino Buonopaneone of the North Ends most celebrated cookshas shared her secrets to creating this culinary magic for your own kitchen. Now she gathers more than 275 of her own mouthwatering recipes, peppered with savory color photos, in this deluxe edition of the beloved cookbook classic.

THE
NORTH END
ITALIAN
COOKBOOK

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Copyright 1975, 1987, 1991, 1997, 2004, 2013 Marguerite DiMino Buonopane

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Photos Credits: Pages ii (bottom) and 99 by Janet Knott. Pages vi, xii, 38, 53, 60, 74, 138, 192, 237, 293, and 304 courtesy of the author. Pages 23, 26, 47, 70, 118, 140, 157, 165, 209, 229, 256, 270, 296, 321, 339 by Ben Lipson. Photos pages ii (top left), iix, 41, 58, 104, and 355 by Jazz Martin, courtesy of Scene Magazine; Photos pages ii (top right), 7, 35, 64, 81, 92, 111, 124, 127, 143, 149, 185, 189, 191, 211, 221, 272-273, 295, 311, 323, 332-333, 345 Adam Mastoon; all others licensed by Shutterstock.com

Project editor: David Legere
Text design and layout: Nancy Freeborn

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN 978-0-7627-8190-4

Printed in the United States of America
Sixth Edition, Second Printing
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

I thank the many friends, seniors, neighbors, and restaurateurs upon whom these recipes have been tried and who urged me to write this compilation. I have to sincerely thank the wonderful chefs from our popular restaurants. They took the time to help me with some of the translations and spelling.

I heartily thank the friends whose recipes I have used here and have found delightful. I must say, however, with an apology, that I have often made some changes, additions, or deletions after trial.

A big thank you to all the senior citizens in my neighborhood who were proud to share their specially guarded recipes and patiently helped me understand all the scribbled notes. Our ancestors deserve a special mention for their years of peasant cooking and handing them down to the next generation.

My special thanks to all those writers who have, quite unknowingly, given me hours of pleasurable reading. No one person writes a book. I hope I have brought you a greater appreciation for the pleasure of preparing and serving many home-style Italian meals in the comfort of home and family.

When I stop to think of it, my world is full of a number of things, including recipes. They are everywhere: in newspapers, magazines, and all over TV. What do we talk about to friends when we get together? Recipes! And what is taking up whole shelves in our kitchens? More recipes! Recipes are wonderful aids to happy living. We will never have time to try them all, which doesnt dampen my collecting enthusiasm in the least. Recipe collecting is a good hobby for every cook. Whether experienced or not, you can always learn something new, or just learn!

Cookbook collecting has certainly come into its own in the past few years. The irony is that those who love to collect them often dont even use them. They point out that using a cookbook damages it with splattered food and torn pages. Perhaps you will feel that way about this hardcover edition, filing it away, but I hope you instead choose to use it!

In collecting these recipes I have made many friends, both by meeting people interested in cooking who have invited me into their homes and by correspondence. Cooks, I have discovered, are friendly people. I have found a few who refuse to part with an age-old recipe or even one they especially treasure. Sometimes guarding these recipes is not a refusal to hand over something precious but an actual inability to do so. Family recipes are so often without exact measurements. It is always a pinch of this or that, other ingredients and a smile. My mother did it this way and so did my grandmother and her mother before her. When you recall your childhood, dont you always think of something your mother used to make, and wish it had been written down?

In Italian kitchens, cooking has always been looked upon as a pleasure, not as a chore. Do not be frightened off by seemingly complicated dishes. Many can be prepared ahead of time and reheated before serving.

The basis of the most colorful Italian dishes are tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil. Yet it is not at all unusual to find an Italian who likes neither tomato sauce nor garlic. He probably has his spaghetti with a butter and cheese sauce and a melon and prosciutto for an ordinary antipasto.

But theres more to a cookbook than its recipes. Theres always something that gets me thinking about food. I love to eat, and therefore I learned early on I had better cook. Do not expect this volume will magically transform you into an Italian cook! But if you wish to approximate the ideas inherent in Italian cuisine, I think this book can, as much as possible, transform you into an Italian family member.

Although Italian food is often delicious beyond belief, some aspects are a matter of preference. For example, the enormous diversity in cooking and serving spaghetti sauces alone is not surprising, since in Italy the recipes vary from region to region. Some people like to mix the sauce and the spaghetti before serving, and when this is done, there is usually an extra bowl of sauce for those who desire more.

The compiling of this book has revived nostalgic memories of my youth. By this time I had already developed a philosophy that in order to prepare good food, one has to be able to recognize good food. Once the recipe is known, the fundamentals of food preparation are all the same. No cook can possibly remember all the ingredients and the exact amounts that go into all the recipes involved in food preparation. Good cooks make mistakes all the time. But the journey is what a recipe is all about. Cookbooks should teach us how to cook, not just follow instructions. The point of a recipe should be to help us find our own way.