Ciao Italia in Umbria
Recipes and Reflections from the Heart of Italy
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Just east of Tuscany, Umbria is lush with rolling hills and rustic small towns - and delicious, healthful, traditional Italian cooking. In her most intimate and personal cookbook to date, popular cooking-show host Mary Ann Esposito, beloved for her long-running series "Ciao Italia," takes us through this delightful, unspoiled region - cooking, eating, and making friends along the way.
With 60 authentic recipes along with anecdotes, profiles, and cooking tips, this companion to "Ciao Italia" is a "traveling cookbook" that transports us to the unforgettable foods of Umbria and the people who prepare them. You'll visit bustling food markets, glorious street festivals, aroma-filled home kitchens, family-run vineyards, top-secret truffle fields, and a heavenly chocolate museum. You'll also find information on mail-order sources, web sites, and Umbrian restaurants.
Everyone who loves Italy will savor the bounty of Umbrian specialties on these pages, including hearty gnocchi, sizzling vegetables and pork sausages alla griglia (on the grill), delectable black truffles, simple ragus, healthful lentils and farro, hearty country breads, and Perugian chocolate desserts.
So pull up a chair, pour a glass of Sangiovese, and come along to Umbria - and bring your appetite!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Host of the PBS cooking series Ciao Italia, Esposito (Ciao Italia Bringing Italy Home) offers only about 60 recipes in her latest collection, but the book succeeds on two levels. First, the dishes from Umbria reflect a simple, rustic fare not overexposed in other Italian cookbooks. Known particularly for its olive oil and truffles, the area in the middle of Italy's boot (bordering Tuscany) specializes in such dishes as Veal with Black Truffles; Pork-Stuffed Celery, an October specialty made for the Festival of Celery and Sausage; and Pork Chops Spoleto Style, which call for kalamata and cerignola olives and dry white wine. Umbrian Ragu Sauce contains ground pork, ground beef and diced ham and requires less than an hour to prepare. Gubbian Flat Bread is made with a scoop of batter poured into a half-inch of hot oil. There is even a Chocolate Olive Oil Cake. In addition to the recipes, Esposito includes 18 personal essays recalling the visit she and her TV crew made to Umbria, when she watched a local cook make pasta, interrupted a farmer tending his garden and witnessed an elaborate race involving likenesses of saints. The brief reminiscences are charming vignettes that enable the reader (even Italophiles who have shelves full of Italian cookbooks) to feel the experience.
