Michele Scicolone - The Italian Vegetable Cookbook: 200 Favorite Recipes for Antipasti, Soups, Pasta, Main Dishes, and Desserts

W hat was the best thing you ate? friends often ask me when I return from Italy. The answer they expect is something like silken pasta handmade by a smiling nonna in her farmhouse kitchen, or perhaps a dreamy new flavor of ice cream from a sleek Milanese gelateria . So, after a recent trip, no one was quite ready for me to rave about eggplant.

You had a whole meal of eggplant? one incredulous friend asked as I described a dinner that began with crispy eggplant cutlets served with a roasted tomato sauce, followed by pasta with eggplant and tomato almond pesto and, finally, eggplant towers oozing milky fresh mozzarella. I tried to explain how flavorful and satisfying everything was, but I dont think she will believe me until she can taste these dishes herself.

Vegetables and fruits have always been at the heart of Italian cooking. Thats why when you visit an Italian neighborhood in this country, you often see vegetable gardens growing on every available patch of soil. Whether it is a fig tree in the backyard, tomatoes in a window box, or basil in a planter on the front porch, all are tended with loving care. In season and freshly picked, the fruits and vegetables are all the more delicious as a result.

In our small backyard in Brooklyn, my mother managed to coax tomatoes, cantaloupes, zucchini, and basil out of a tiny patch of earth surrounded by a sea of concrete. Each year she carefully preserved seeds from her summer harvest to plant the following summer.

On my first visit to Italy, as we drove from the airport to our hotel, I noticed little swatches of peppers, zucchini, and artichokes everywhere, even on the highway median strips. In cities and towns, tomatoes and basil flourished in recycled olive oil cans on terraces and window balconies. Fig, lemon, and peach trees abounded in front and backyards, bay and rosemary bushes lined the walks in the public parks, and blackberries thrived along country roads. Olive, pomegranate, and walnut trees shaded public squares, available for all to enjoy.

Because Italy was historically a poor country, eating meat was reserved mostly for special occasions. Fish, which might have been easy to catch, was more often sold than eaten. Since the country is blessed with fertile land and a long growing season (at least in Southern Italy), the most readily available foods have always been the fresh fruits, grains, legumes, herbs, nuts, and vegetables found growing wild or cultivated in even the smallest plots.

Resourceful cooks learned how to handle thorny nettles and tough cardoons. They cooked wild greens in soups or turned them into sauces or stews to top polenta or pasta. Fruits at their peak of flavor but on the verge of being overripe were transformed into jams, sauces, or tarts. With such a bounty of produce, all a good cook needed to add was a bit of creativity. And whether it comes to music, art, or cooking, Italians have never lacked for that.

I n this book, I wanted to share some of the mouthwatering dishes I have tasted in my years of traveling through Italy. Many of the recipes were given to me by talented home cooks. I tasted other dishes in restaurants or gleaned them from the Italian cooking magazines and cookbooks I collect. Still other recipes were handed down by my grandparents, who came from the Naples area, or by my husbands family, who were from Sicily. Traditional dishes like stuffed artichokes, sauted mushrooms, and spinach (or other greens) with garlic and hot pepper taste as good today as they did when my mother made them for our family many years ago.

The recipes in this book all feature vegetables, grains, or fruits in some form, but you will notice that some contain small amounts of pancetta or anchovies, or suggest chicken broth as an alternative ingredient. Because I eat mostly vegetables but am not a vegetarian, I sometimes use these ingredients as a seasoning, the way Italians do. If you prefer to omit them, by all means do so. You can always amp up the flavor by adding a handful of olives, herbs, red pepper, or some chopped caperswhatever works best with the recipe.