Rick Steves - Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers

Italy for Food Lovers

Rick Steves & Fred Plotkin

T his is a guide to Italian food. But its also a book about the Italian peopletheir ingenuity, their traditions, and their evangelical zeal for quality. Its about the sensuality of Italy, expressed through its food, wine, and culinary philosophy. It will lead you to the Italy that you can see, taste, smell, touch, and hear, where flavors, fragrances, scenery, art, music, and people are all sources of pleasureknown in Italy as piacere.

Before we dig in, first lets meet Giuseppe Garibaldia name youll see wherever you go in Italy. There may be a street named Via Garibaldi, a Piazza Garibaldi, a Bar Garibaldi, or any number of civic institutions named for the man who is often thought of as the George Washington of Italy.

Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was the military leader of the Risorgimento, a decades-long movement that culminated in the creation of a modern Italian nation in 1870. The Risorgimento brought together, for the first time, the Italian Peninsulas many city-states, kingdoms, duchies, papal territories, and lands under foreign domination. The nation created by Garibaldi and the Risorgimento stretches from the Alps (with apple strudel and Deutsch-speaking natives), to former outposts of the Venetian Republic and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to the fog-draped valleys and fertile farmlands of central Italy, to city-states that peaked in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, to the ancient ruins of Rome, to the wild sprawl of Naples at the base of a temperamental volcano, to the sunbaked and Greek-inflected south, to two giant islands that each have their own unique culture and history. Its staggering to imagine the ambitionthe sheer gallof Garibaldi and his peers, who wove these disparate parts of the peninsula into a single country.

One of the joys of traveling through Italy is observing how this internal diversity has remained strong, more than 150 years after Garibaldi. Through Mussolini, world wars, membership in the European Union, economic crisis, a global pandemic, and much more, Italy is still Italy. Except its also many Italysregions, provinces, cities, neighborhoodseach with its own personality.

Italians use the word campanilismo to describe their super-local approach to cultural identity. It means the sense of community, pride, and devotion shared by those within earshot of a towns campanile, or bell tower. A campanilista will tell you that the pasta typical of his town is the best in Italy, and certainly better than the (essentially identical) one from the next town over. Within the region of Emilia-Romagna, the cities of Parma and Reggio Emiliaseparated by less than 20 milescultivate a centuries-old enmity about who has the better cheeses, hams, and salame. And if you meet a woman from the Sicilian city of Siracusa, she likely wont identify herself as italiana, but as sicilianaif not siracusana.

As you explore Italy, its all too easy to become a mindless sightseer, lured in by interchangeable, tourist-friendly restaurants with a giant English menu out front listing the same dishes you can order in Little Italy back home. Instead, try traveling as a food loveras Garibaldi with a fork: tuning into the subtle regional differences as you move from place to place, making a point to sample the very best of what each region or town has to offer, while at the same time celebrating what makes Italy, Italy.

Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers is a handbook for those wanting to experience Italy not only through its great sights, but also through its cuisine. The core of this book is a reincarnation of Italy for the Gourmet Traveler by Fred Plotkina town-by-town, restaurant-by-restaurant guide to Italian cuisine (first published in 1996, with updated editions through 2014). For many years, Rick admired Freds masterpiece, which was the undisputed, definitive guide to Italian food culture. And over time, as Rick and Fred became friends, we hatched an idea: What if we revived that book, updated it, and adapted it for todays traveler? And so, Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers was born.

Over the decades that Fred has spent living and traveling in Italy, he has come to think of himself as a Garibaldi with a fork. He has slept and eaten in most of the towns Garibaldi visitedand many he didnt, taking notes on everything he ate and drank. Along the way, Fred delighted locals with his interest in and affection for their foods, customs, and history. In this book, hell share much of this acquired campanilismo with youalong with the encouragement to go and discover these places for yourself.

Meanwhile, Rick prides himself as being the everyperson travelera typical American who enjoys travel and good food, but who lacks Freds deep expertise. As his lifes work, Rick seeks to embolden all travelers to wade into the joys of Europemaking his favorite continent accessible and meaningful to first-timers and veteran travelers alike. Rick might not know the difference, exactly, between a Barolo and a Barbaresco, but he knows what he likes.

Together, weve worked hard to ensure that this new guide is up-to-the-moment relevant to the needs of todays traveler, while also taking advantage of Freds knowledge of the timeless joys of Italian cuisine. With many combined decades of Italian travel (and eating) under our collective belts, our goal is to help travelers not only appreciate Italian food, but also to understand it deeplyto think about food the way that Italians do. We want to introduce you to the flavors that Italians grew up with and cherish.

For simplicity, in the chapters that follow, well shed our respective egos and become I. But youll notice that each of our personalities sneaks in here and thereand at times well call out some personal observations and memories. And at the end of the book, weve each curated a list of our 50 favorite eateries from all across Italy.

This isnt a guidebook of sightseeing strategies, itinerary tips, and listings for hotels, museums, or even restaurants. For that, youll want to pick up a proper guidebook. (Might we suggest the Rick Steves guidebook serieseither our all-Italy books, or city and regional guides on Venice, Rome, Florence and Tuscany, the Cinque Terre, and Sicily?) Rather, this book is designed to complement other travel information with a focus on food. Its designed to be something you can take along to Italy and flip through while youre waiting for your flight, sitting on the train, or relaxing over dinner. Or simply enjoy reading it at home, as an armchair gourmand.

This book is organized into four parts.

The first part covers the basics: how to find a good restaurant, how Italian meals differ from ones back home, and how to take advantage of Italys fine grocery stores and markets to assemble a picnic, pick up some souvenirs, or cook for yourself.

The second part dives into the food, describing what youll find on the plate, course by coursefrom tasty antipasti to toothsome pastas to hearty steaks to delicious gelatoplus Italys coffee culture and remarkable wine scene.