Eat Smart in Sicily How to Decipher the Menu Know the Market Foods and Embark on a Tasting Adventure Eat Smart in Sicily How to Decipher the Menu Know to Decipher the Menu Know the Market Foods
July 2, 2009 by Italian Recipes · Leave a Comment
Eat Smart in Sicily is a travel book that you can enjoy in your kitchen long before you tuck it into your suitcase. Authors Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce survey the rich history of Sicily and its culinary influences, offer tips on finding the best local foods, and include glossaries and restaurant guides that ensure successful dining experiences while visiting. One chapter shares more than 25 authentic recipes that can be savored as a preview or a reminiscence of a remarkable and culturally significant island. –Fra Noi Newspaper, Chicago
Sicily is the melting-pot of the Mediterranean, having Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arabic, Norman, Germanic and French influences, and sitting down to a meal in Palermo is much more than stopping in at the local fast food franchise. Learning more about the food and history of Sicily will make your visit so much richer. It’s what Epicurean Traveler is all about, and it is where the EAT SMART guides excel.
EAT SMART IN SICILY by Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce, is much more than the translation of a typical Sicilian menu. The first 20 pages of this 145-page guide are devoted to the history of Sicily, with the particular focus on how various conquerors affected (or didn’t affect) the cuisine.
Whether it is an indictment of the way history is taught in college, or a validation of the fine writing provided by the authors, EAT SMART IN SICILY explained more about Sicilian history and its various occupiers, than I had gleaned from reading travel guidebooks, or taking History of Western Civilization in college.
Other sections explain local foods, provinces within Sicily, shopping the food markets of Sicily, helpful phrases to use in a restaurant, and an extensive menu guide. You will also find 28 Sicilian recipes here, so you can get a flavor of the island before you go there.
… if you’re going to Sicily, you need this guide your visit will be the richer for it. Part phrase book, part cookbook, part travel book, each EAT SMART guide is the perfect guide for the Epicurean Traveler. –Scott Clemens, Epicurean-Traveler.com
Sicily is, of course, not only a place of romance, but home to its own particular cuisine, distinct from cuisines of the Italian mainland. To help travelers navigate this culinary landscape, Joan Peterson has added one more culture to her extremely useful EAT SMART series, this time co-authored with native Sicilian Marcella Croce. They provide a culinary history of the island, describing local foods, dishes, recipes, and food markets. The lengthy glossary and menu guide give readers significantly more information than does a general traveler’s dictionary. Anyone who loves travel as much for food as for all its other pleasures, will find this an invaluable guide to a realm where food is such an important part of the life and culture of the people. Highly recommended for public libraries. –Library Journal
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star A real disappointment!
I bought this book because of the five-star reviews it’s gotten. What a disappointment! The coverage is superficial; the recipes don’t mention ingredients in the list; the prose is simpleminded. The author has written eight other guides in the series, but it seems as if this book is the result of a whirlwind tour. It reads more like an expanded, hastily-done magazine article, with only a few pages on each of the regions and their specialties. A good guidebook’s food section would be a better value; Sicily deserves better! Mary Taylor Simeti’s POMP AND SUSTENANCE is far preferable to this.
5 Stars MOUTHWATERING GUIDE
by Sharon Hudgins, author of The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East
Joan Peterson has done it again! Teaming up with Sicilian food expert, Marcella Croce, Ms. Peterson has produced another book in her excellent, well written, and informative “Eat Smart” series. This latest edition, “Eat Smart in Sicily” makes you want to reserve a flight to Sicily on the next plane. Following the format of the series, this latest work begins with a historical survey of Sicilian cuisine, from the Greek, Roman, and Arab influences to the Norman and Spanish rulers of this large island that belongs to Italy today. Since Sicily was a crossroad of many cultures, its cuisine reflects the tastes of a variety of people who have landed and lived on its shores.
The section on “Local Sicilian Food” describes the primary ingredients used in Sicilian cooking, followed by a description of the characteristic foods and special dishes of the different provinces of the island. A chapter on “Tastes of Sicily” provides 28 detailed, accurate recipes for Sicilian dishes, from antipasti to desserts.
The second half of the book is a practical guide for travelers to Sicily, with helpful phrases, a menu guide arranged alphabetically (with recommendations for which dishes are classics, local favorites, highly recommended, etc.), and an alphabetical foods-and-flavors guide where you can look up the English-language translations of Sicilian food terms. Eight pages of color photos of Sicilian dishes will make you understand why the authors of this culinary guidebook are so enthusiastic about the island’s cuisine.
Highly recommended (along with all the other books in this series)!
5 Stars One of the best yet in the ‘Eat Smart’ series
If the recipes and color photos in “Eat Smart in Sicily” don’t get you looking at possible airfares to Sicily for a gourmet eating holiday, nothing will.
This latest in the “Eat Smart” series features a photo spread of dishes incorporating fish, eggplant, saffron and beef, as well as concoctions such as a beautifully textured Eastern lamb made of marzipan.
Recipes tell how to make fried artichoke leaves, orange-flavored pork, stuffed mahi-mahi rolls, and Arab-influenced dishes including couscous with fish. Another recipe I plan to try at home is a pasta dish dressed with a pesto of pistachios, almonds and basil — it’s got to be delectable.
At minimum, “Eat Smart in Sicily” will get readers into the kitchen and trying to recreate their own taste of Sicily or visiting Italian restaurants specializing in Sicilian food as well as the more prevalent styles found in U.S. restaurants, based on the cuisines of Naples, Tuscany, Bologna and Florence.
As with others in the “Eat Smart” series, “… in Sicily” is handsomely illustrated and meticulously researched, with a history of the Mediterranean island as it relates to food, noting the contributions of Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Norman French and others.
A chapter on local foods notes the lack historically of meat proteins on the island, the Sicilian interest in wild vegetables, and the local quality of citrus fruits and passion for gelati, now nearly as popular in the United States.
Joan Peterson of Madison, Wisc., the driving force behind other “Eat Smart” guides to Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, Peru and other good-eating destinations, joined forces with Sicilian native Marcella Croce for this latest entry in the series. Let’s hope that it makes its way in many suitcases and backpacks belonging to travelers headed to this world crossroads of history and food.
5 Stars Invaluable tips for shopping in both the Sicilian open air food markets as well as their modern supermarkets
Joan Peterson has now authored and/or co-authored nine superbly crafted and incredible informative travel guides with a distinctive culinary orientation. The newest addition to her impressive roster of titles is “Eat Smart In Sicily: How To Decipher The Menu, Know The Market Foods & Embark On A Tasting Adventure” which she co-authored with Sicilian native, journalist and author Marcella Croce. Enhanced for the armchair browser with a section of color photography showcasing dishes, foods, and chefs, “Eat Smart In Sicily” truly lives up to its name and the sterling reputation of the entire ‘Eat Smart’ series. Along with an historical overview focused on the origins of Sicily’s culinary diversity and a quick tour of local Sicilian foods and their variations, travelers are providing with invaluable tips for shopping in both the Sicilian open air food markets as well as their modern supermarkets. With the inclusion of resource lists, helpful phrases, a menu guide, recommended restaurants, and even a thoroughly ‘user friendly’ Menu Guide, “Eat Smart In Sicily” is a ‘must’ for anyone traveling there for either business or pleasure or both!
Weight Watchers Simply the Best Italian More than 250 Classic Recipes from the Kitchens of Italy
June 30, 2009 by Italian Recipes · Leave a Comment
Weight Watchers Simply the Best Italian More than 250 Classic Recipes from the Kitchens of Italy
From antipasto to zuppa, Weight Watchers Simply the Best Italian offers more than 250 recipes for the best regional Italian dishes.
Simply the Best Italian takes you on a whirlwind tour of the kitchens of Italy. It supplies you with hundreds of recipes that are quick to prepare and quite healthful, focusing on good-for-you ingredients that are staples in the Italian kitchen, like fresh vegetables, pastas, grains, and plenty of heart-healthy olive oil.
From the best of Italy’s home-style favorites to delicious trattoria dishes, Simply the Best Italian has classics like Risotto alla Milanese, Lamb alla Cacciatora, Spaghetti alla Carbonara, and Insalata alla Caprese. But only Weight Watchers can provide you with healthful renditions of Lasagne with Tomatoes and Cheese, Deep-Dish Sausage Pizza and Eggplant Parmigiana. To top off your meal or to satisfy a sweet tooth, Simply the Best Italian offers delectable dolci like Espresso Granita, Chocolate-Almond Biscotti or Torta di Ricotta.
What’s more, Simply the Best Italian reveals the secrets and tricks all great Italian cooks know. Clever and easy tips abound, as does useful information, such as how to choose the perfect wine for your meal or the subtle difference between olive oils.
If you’re following the popular Weight Watchers 1-2-3 Success
Italian Classics Best Recipe
June 29, 2009 by Italian Recipes · Leave a Comment
The Best Recipe series from Cook’s Illustrated magazine goes from strength to strength. With its formula of exhaustively tested recipes paired with heavily illustrated techniques, the series makes it easy for even beginning cooks to produce successful dishes almost every time. For the casual home cook, Italian Classics might be the single best Italian cookbook to own. The book is, in classic Best Recipe fashion, a great big beautiful doorstop of a thing. Even so, it’s not crammed with arcana. For most Americans–who in survey after survey say that regional Italian is the cuisine they most enjoy cooking at home–the recipes here will be pretty familiar; the space is devoted not to obscure dishes but to exhaustive treatments of favorites. Pesto, for instance, gets about three pages. You end up with a delicious, perfectly prepared basil paste, and along the way you learn how to bruise herb leaves, you get a treatise on why a garlic press isn’t such a bad thing (despite what the professionals say), and finally, you are led into the intriguing territory of nonbasil pestos such as Toasted Nut and Parsley, and Arugula and Ricotta. All the classics are here, from red-checkered-tablecloth dishes like Spaghetti and Meatballs to regional dishes like Ribollita. Throughout, there’s a nice balance between authenticity and accessibility. The book doesn’t call for wildly obscure ingredients that other cookbook authors so often claim can be readily found at “specialty stores,” and there’s no snobbishly overwrought preparation–another boon for the home cook. –Claire Dederer
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Excellent Italian reference for American cooks
A passionate home cook that has been honing her cooking skills for the last 25 years, concentrating on Italian cooking for the last 10 years, writes this review. My favorite cookbooks are “The Professional Chef” by the Culinary Institute and “Culinary Artistry”. With more than 500 cookbooks in my collection I am usually disappointed in my recent cookbook acquisitions. I am also very tough on Italian cookbooks in particular.
The “Italian Classics” by the editors of Cooks Illustrated Magazine pleasantly surprised me. I expected the typical Italian American recipes that I dislike. This book is much more authentic that I expected it to be. Even as an experienced Italian cook I find it difficult to criticize this book to any large extent.
The editors of Cook’s Illustrated write this book in the same manner as their other books. The writers tell you what they tried that didn’t work, before they get to the ingredients and techniques that did work. There are very few pictures in this book. The paper is not the glossy stock that you find in my cookbooks today. I would have appreciated if the book had included the Italian names for the recipes. Sometimes they include the Italian name of the recipes in the narrative about the recipe, and sometimes they do not. But, the recipes themselves more make up for these minor disappointments.
The book is outlines as follows:
1. Antipasti
2. Salads
3. Vegetables
4. Soups
5. Pasta
6. Risotto, Polenta, and Bean
7. Poultry
8. Meat
9. Fish and Shellfish
10. Bread and Pizza
11. Eggs and Savory Tarts
12. Fruit Desserts
13. Chilled and Frozen Desserts
14. Biscotti, Crostate, and Cakes
The first recipe that I check out in any Italian cookbook to gauge its authenticity is Spaghetti Carbonara. If this recipe has cream included the book is immediately put back on the shelf. Unexpectedly, the recipe is this book does not add the cream, as American books tend to do. As I looked further, I realized that the authors tried to make each recipe as authentic as possible. The reason for the qualifier is that it is always not possible to make a recipe 100% authentic. I for one have never found an American supplier of Guanciale (cured pig’s cheek), and Farro is also tough to come by. The writers did a very nice job substituting products that are easier to locate in the US.
If you are in need of comprehensive and reasonably authentic Italian cookbook, this will make a nice addition to your cookbook collection.
5 Stars My favorite cuisine-specific book
Cooks Illustrated did an excellent job with this book. It is an invaluable reference to me because my knowledge of Italian fare is limited. True to form, CI takes the guesswork out of making the recipes and provides valid reasons why not to stray. If you are unfamiliar with CI methodology, each recipe comes with a background information regarding the failed tests that lead to the creation of the recipe. If you are not interested in this type of background, the recipes are still great so just skip the added info.
I really enjoy the tasting and equipment ratings that have been incorporated into the book. This is not an all-day recipe type of book. CI balances time with flavor. Many of the recipes can be used for weeknight meals and certainly for weekends.
My favorite pasta sauce recipes are from this book. They turn out perfectly every time.
5 Stars Better than average reference for Italian dishes.
‘Italian Classics’ is a ‘Cooks Illustrated’ treatment of well known Italian recipes. I have reviewed a number of similar ‘Cooks Illustrated’ books and a fabulous number of Italian cookbooks, and I believe that this volume is both better than the average ‘Cooks Illustrated’ volume AND better than the average Italian cookbook.
Part of the value of this book is not due to the efforts of the ‘Cooks Illustrated’ staff, it is due to their applying their usual approach to a body of recipes which are well established and about which there is a great body of writing already available in English.
That means that when they evaluate a pasta Puttanesca recipe, there is little chance they will be going wrong, as they have the writings of Marcella Hazan, Lydia Bastianich, Mario Batalli, Giuliano Bugialli, and Michelle Scicolone to proof their researches against.
This is not to say that they sometimes go off the deep end of fussiness, as when they suggest parboiling the garlic in the pan before adding the oil and other ingredients so as to not burn the garlic when starting out on their Puttanesca.
Still, I am always guaranteed of seeing a highly reliable recipe for the Italian standards in this volume and while I have multiple volumes written by all those other authors, I still refer to this book first every time I want to do meatballs or lasagna or gnocchi or osso bucco.
Recommended for people who like to cook Italian.
5 Stars Excellent reference book on Italian Cooking
Would you like to learn all the tips and tricks about Italian Cooking? How about learning what is the best perfoming spaguetti brand, or different types of eggplant and how to work with it? Best garlic crusher, best pans, best everything - look no further: this is the book to get all the information you need.
The guys at Cooking Illustrated did an outstanding job researching for this book, I was very pleased and impressed. This is my first “The Best Recipe Series” cookbook! (and now I that I know the format of these books I want to buy the other ones too.!!)
This is a book you want to take to bed and read - recommended for both the amateur cook and for the professional - lots and lots of interesting facts and information about ingredients, techniques, products, equipment, utensils, you name it.
If you are a cookbook lover like myself, you will see the difference between this one and all the rest of the books you have read.
4 Stars Rich of great recipes and information
This is a great book for anyone interested in cooking italian. It provides very in depth discussions of many classic italian dishes and many possible variants. I agree with a previous reviewer that this book is not perfect and some dishes miss essential ingredients. But I still think it is a great book. Most of the recipes are excellent and, most importantly, this books provides a lot of information on why and how: once you will digest this type of information you’ll be able to even get creative a make your own italian style dishes.
Sweet Myrtle and Bitter Honey The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia
June 28, 2009 by Italian Recipes · Leave a Comment
Sweet Myrtle and Bitter Honey The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia
If you lived on this island in the Mediterranean, you served guests the best of what you had and treasured hospitality, Farris writes. He shares that spirit here, while explaining the unique characteristics of Sardinian food (influences not only from Italian, but also Moorish, Catalan, Arabian and other cuisines). — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sweet Myrtle and Bitter Honey: The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia … illuminates the culinary traditions of one of Italy’s least-explored regions: Sardinia. The exotic recipes, as well as the author’s personal recollections and photographs of both the island and its cuisine, made me want to travel to Sardinia, or at least to Texas, where Farris operates two restaurants — Newsday
“Flavored with the all-important pecorino di Sardo (sheep’s milk cheese) and heavy with pastas (including fregula, like Israeli couscous, and malloreddus, tear-drop shaped and ridged) and rustic main courses, the book creates a delicious portrait of the still very rural island.” — - The Chicago Tribune
I knew Sardinia was an island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy. But I had never given the place much thought until [this] evocatively titled cookbook. [The] words, and the book’s color and sepia-toned vintage photographs, bring Sardinia to life and may add another stop to your list of planned culinary journeys — San Diego Union Tribune
Mr. Farris’s thoughtful essays on local ingredients and traditions (wild asparagus, household sausage-making) bring to life things that may be untranslatable. His carefully presented recipes try to translate them anyhow, with love and intelligence. — The New York Times
With his first cookbook, Farris leaps into the front ranks of culinary regionalist and troubadour. He’s a transplant to Texas, a restaurateur and importer, but his taste buds still twinkle to the lusty, muscular primal cuisine of his ancestral Sardinia. He stirs up an appetite for simple pasta dishes in which the sauce determines the shape of the macarrones, and any number of compositions featuring spiced and herbed lamb, artichokes, olives and various seafood stews enriched with bottarga. The author first tasted this “Sardinian caviar,” the roe of gray mullet, at age three on a cherished expedition to catch and cook fish on the beach with his father and uncle. He balances sentimentality with frank delight in testing the reader’s mettle. Roasted eels, pictured in full slither, are only a start. Anyone for abbamele, the honey and bee pollen reduction? Raw sea urchin under the full moon? Then there is casu murzu, rotten cheese, which owes its creamy texture to maggots. Our intrepid guide, who “cannot resist its charms,” admits that even for him it was a childhood gross-out. Beautifully illustrated, often eminently cookable, the book also has the charms of a picaresque novel. (Oct.) — Publisher’s Weekly Oct2007
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Sweet Book
Beautiful colorplates and great, easy recipes make this book a treasure. It captures the essence of Mediterranean cooking, giving the “amateur” chef the opportunity to wow their guests.
5 Stars Beautiful Cookbook!
After visiting Sardinia this summer, I was so excited to find this cookbook to give to my daughters this Christmas. We were all so enthralled with this area of Italy and all of its’ cuisine. This cookbook has recipes for many of the delicacies we loved while visiting there and is just simply a beautiful book — many historical facts and wonderful pictures are included.
5 Stars Not just a cookbook
This book is not just another italian cookbook. It shares detailed stories of the author’s homeland. I have visted Sardegna twice and fell in the love with the island, the people and of course the food. Now I am able to cook the dishes at home. Not only are the recipes delicious but fairly simple to make. The natural food and simplicity of life are described in this book. No wonder Sardegna has the world’s longest living people. After reading his stories and sampling the recipes, you will want to visit Sardegna. I’ve purchased three books to give as gifts and everyone has enjoyed them.
4 Stars Unique and Delicious
I was intrigued by the flavors of the recipes; not just another italian cook book. The many cultural influences on the island culture are apparent in this book’s recipes. Exquisite and delicious. I also recommend Finger Licking Different if you love something tasty, quick to prepare and unique.
5 Stars Salute!
My most anticipated book purchase has exceeded all of my expectations!
If you think this is just another Italian cookbook, think again. As the author explains in the book, after centuries of raids from foreign cultures like Phoenicia, Arabia, and Spain (just to name a very small few), Sardinia finally became a part of Italy in the 1850s. This excerpt says it best; “Some of the pasta shapes, meats and cheeses (like lamb and pecorino) and of course olive oil will be familiar. But lingering Roman, Arabian, Moorish, Catalan, and other Mediterranean influences (like myrtle and saffron) make our cuisine a hybrid”.
Efisio guides you through each of these exquisitely authentic recipes, shared from his own family’s kitchen and effortlessly weaves in his deep devotion to Sardinian culture and history so that every page just drips with his love of country (and food). His use of indigenous ingredients such as Botarga (dried grey mullet), Miele Amaro (bitter honey) and Malloreddus (one of their pastas), paired of course with either a good Cannonau (red wine) or Vermintino (white wine) offer an exciting array of surprisingly uncomplicated recipes which makes this a treasure trove of refreshing new ideas for everyday cooking.
In true Sardinian style, you are his guest in his “home” as he takes you on tour through his beloved country. And, being the generous host, you almost don’t realize that you too are falling in love with his country and its culture. Yet it seems that is the hope, for at the end Efisio has provided not only a “pantry” for places to purchase authentic Sardinian ingredients (a must have to do any of these recipes justice), he also provides a short list of hotels and restaurants to get your actual travels to Sardinia a leg up in the right direction.
This book is such a breathtaking tribute to Sardinia and its culture, it is a must read even for those with no interest in cooking, it’s that good!
Italian Cooking
June 26, 2009 by Italian Recipes · Leave a Comment
One of the delights of Italian food is its diversity. Each region has its own favourite ingredients and cooking techniques, and each has its own unique character, but one thing is common to all - the freshness and quality of the food.
