Colman Andrews - The Country Cooking of Italy

THE

COUNTRY COOKING

of ITALY

by COLMAN ANDREWS

foreword by MARIO BATALI

photographs by

HIRSHEIMER AND HAMILTON

Text copyright 2011 by Colman Andrews.

Photographs copyright 2011 by Christopher Hirsheimer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN 978-1-4521-2392-9

Designed by Brooke Johnson

Prop and food styling by Melissa Hamilton

Typesetting by Janis Reed

Photo on : Courtesy of Popperphoto/Getty Images.

Chronicle Books

680 Second Street

San Francisco, California 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

for Maddy and Izzy, my partners in pasta since they were bambine

I must begin by thanking some old friends, both American and Italian, who helped introduce me to real Italian cooking many years ago: Karen (Kelly) Miller, Gianfranco Perrotti, Piero Selvaggio, the late Mauro Vincenti, and Steven Wagner. More recently, the ever erudite and entertaining Darrell Corti (they dont call him Il Professore for nothing) and the similarly gifted Charles Perry answered numerous questions about language, food, and culture. Jonathan Waxman, with whom Ive shared scores of meals in Italy (among many other places), was a font of practical culinary information. Although I never spoke to them specifically about this book, Marcella and Victor Hazan have been a frequent source of information and inspiration for more than a decade.

Grazie mille to Michele Russo and Riccardo Russo in Basilicata and Natale Rusconi, Bepi DEste, and Luca da Vita in the Venetoand to Domenico Laera in Alberobello, Maurizio Barone at Il Tastevin in Vigevano, and the proprietors of Ristorantino di Columba in Ferrara and of Ristorante Cocchi in Parma, who were generous with their recipes.

Ive drawn on my experiences in the early 1990s in Liguria for portions of this book, and sothough I havent seen them for yearsI must also acknowledge the help, way back then, of Giorgio Bergami, Maria Deidda, Diego Moreno, Renato and Gianni Belforte, Franco and Melly Solari, Sandro and Erica Oddo, and Mara Allavena.

Julia Lee and Elizabeth Pearson, a couple of the more illustrious alumnae of the Saveur test kitchen, worked with many of the recipes that follow and made them better. Thanks, too, to Rick Mindermann, Anahid Nazarian, and Carlo Petrini for counsel of various kindsand to my wife, Erin Walker, for her continuing understanding and (in several senses of the word) support.

This book wouldnt exist without the efforts of my agent, Michael Psaltis, who both made the deal and helped me, in many ways, fulfill my end of it successfully. It is always a pleasure to work with my editor at Chronicle Books, Bill LeBlond, and with Chronicles crack design and production team, who are as good as it gets. Sharon Silva, copy editor straordinario, brought logic and consistency to both my prose and my recipes, and saved me from making some silly mistakes.

Finally, but also first and foremost, I owe a whole feast full of gratitude to Christopher Hirsheimer and her colleague Melissa Hamilton. Christophers delicious and evocative photographs dont just illustrate this volume but bring it to life, and she and Melissa made sense out of some of the most challenging recipes herein and elegantly refined some of the simplest, dispensing plenty of culinary wisdom along the way. This would be half a book, if even that, without them.

We work on many book projects, but when we work together with the great Colman Andrews it is always such a gratifying collaboration. He shares his breadth of knowledge and authority in such a rich, accessible voice. It was a great honor to photograph this wonderful book and, we thank him for asking us to do it.

Lori De Mori and Jason Lowe gave us their beautiful Italian farmhouse, an agrarian paradise, nestled in the folds of vine planted hills. Thank you for allowing us to pretend-live your dreamy Italian lifestyle.

We would still be lost on the back roads of Italy had it not been for our lovely guide, Katharine Johnson, who led us to secret gardens and hidden hamlets, introducing us to real Italians all along the way.

Thank you Peggy Markel for sharing your jewel of an apartment with us and for showing us the sights and sounds of Italian city life.

Were always grateful to Joan Evans for her generosity in allowing us to benefit from her refined eye and sensibility.

We would like to thank Elizabeth May for sharing her wonderful ways with all things sweet.

Our greatest appreciation goes to Julie Sproesser, our studio colleague, who holds down the fort while we roam the globe.

To the lovely people at Chronicle Books for being so sensitive to the photographers vision: Bill LeBlond who publishes beautiful book after beautiful book and the extraordinarily talented designer, Brooke Johnson.

Colman Andrewss long history as a food writer, editor-in-chief, bon vivant, and inside player in the behind-the-scenes worlds of both food producers and chefs is evidenced by his many magnificent tomes and about a million stories published in glossy monthly foodzines. His legendary and definitive books, Catalan Cuisine and Flavors of the Riviera, on Catalan and Ligurian cooking, respectively, are cornerstones of my 10,000-volume cookbook collection, and Ferran, his sashay into biography, has shaped what the world knows and thinks of the enigmatic and influential chef Ferran Adri.

But why The Country Cooking of Italyand what the hell does that title mean anyway? With this volume, Andrews has thrown himself into a market crowded with books by various divas, alleged nonne, TV stars from the Food Network and PBS, and chefs from trattorie and ristoranti across the landmany of whom may actually have visited Italy at least a couple of times. In their works, distinct food opinion is often blurred by the prism of commercial marketability, and any real voice or presence is lost.

Not so here. The Country Cooking of Italy is not the usual jumble of recipes for unique versions of spaghetti alla carbonara, lasagna variations from points outside Bologna, and treatments of saltimbocca ad nauseum. Andrews is keenly aware of the pitfalls of books that offer recipes like these, and he is tired of the dishes that well-intentioned restaurateurs serve their foreign guests throughout the Boot.