The Best Italian Cookbook
I’m a sucker for buying cookbooks. Whether a £50 fancy bound thing from the internet or a scruffy old £1.50 charity shop book, I’ve got them all.
My favourite kind of cooking is by far Italian so naturally they represent the larger proportion of books on the shelf.
I recommend three -
- Giorgio Locatelli ‘Made in Italy’ - a beautifully bound, hardbacked, 600+ masterpiece. It features many stunningly presented, authentic recipes amongst lots of essays on Italian culture and cooking in general. A book to drag out whn you have the afternoon completely free and feel the urge to create something magnificent.
- ‘The Silver Spoon’ is also known as the bible of authentic Italian cooking and it is easy to see why. At over 1200 pages with minimal photography this really is a workhorse of a book. Name any ingerdient you could possibly anticipate finding and The Silver Spoon will offer you different ways of cooking it. What? You have a pile of calves brains and no idea what to do with them - they offer nine proven ways for you to turn them into classic Italian food. Topically and seasonally they offer 14 different courgette dishes! Simple, to the point, basic ingredients.
- Marcella Hazan ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking’. For me the best Italian cookbook around with 722 pages (and no pictures). Marcella is your authentic Italian granny (now living in the US I believe). She’s not a celebrity chef, she’s the real deal. Her recipes offer the perfect mix of authentic, impressive Italian style with an easy to follow writing style. It mixes up technically challenging dishes with the super quick ‘bung it all together’. It;s a basic Italian cooking manual for cooks at every level - beginners to the highly accomplished. What I also love about the book is the commentary and the thought that goes in. Her bolognese (the best bolognese recipe bar none) spans three pages and she explains each and every process along with alternatives etc. She is also passionate about the ‘real’ way of cooking. No short cuts. Bolognese HAS to cook for minimum 3hrs. Pizza dough MUST be kneaded by hand and not a machine. Passion goes into every page. I love it and it is my ‘go-to’ book for practically every mealtime now. Not easily available but you can order it from your local bookstore.
