Biba's Italy: Favorite Recipes from the Splendid Cities [Hardcover]

`Biba's Italy' by notable restauranteur and cookbook writer, Biba Caggiano succeeds because it has established itself in a tidy little niche at the intersection between Italian travel guide, study of regional Italian cooking, and Italian recipe reference.

From the first influence, Biba gets a breezy, engaging writing style which is far superior to many other highly touted interpreters of Italian cuisine such as Mario Batali or Giada DeLaurentiis. It shares the same virtues as the much less culinarily talented Ina Garten's book `Barefoot in Paris', which gives us a culinary tour of great venues and products from the City of Lights. Since I have been in four out of these five cities myself, I can guarantee that Ms. Caggiano is not exaggerating one wit about the charm and beauty of these five great cities. For anyone who is planning to visit Italy, I would recommend this book before any more pedestrian tourist guide, assuming, of course, that the prospective traveler liked to eat.

From the second influence, most notably represented by Claudia Roden's classic `The Food of Italy', we get a sampling of great dishes from five of Italy's most important cities, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Milan, and Venice. While journalist Roden is looking to cram as many different dishes as possible into a small book (actually, a series of newspaper articles originally), Ms. Caggiano is simply treating us to the high points. Anyone familiar with Ms. Caggiano's earlier books will know that she did not include Naples or Sicily because Ms. Caggiano is a northern girl, originally from Bologna in Emilia-Romagna, north of both Tuscany (Florence) and Lazio (Rome). What this means is that the book is heavy on the fresh pasta, polenta, and risotto, but light on pizza and other southern specialities.

From the third type of book, the Italian culinary `encyclopedia', we get `classic' versions of the representative dishes. While it is common knowledge that aside from some recent inventions such as Pizza Margarita, there is no one essential recipe for classic dishes, but some recipes come a lot closer (and are a lot more interesting) than others to the ideal.

Based on having reviewed several different cookbooks on the dishes of Rome, for example, I'm convinced that almost all of Biba's recipes in this book are based on the way they actually make it in Rome. And, the choice of recipes stays with all the best-known dishes. If one has been diligent in learning the Italian names of many dishes, you may not immediately recognize this, since Ms. B. always gives the English name first, but it should not be too hard to recognize that `Veal Scaloppine with Prosciutto, Sage, and Wine' is the famous `Saltimbocca alla Romana'. It jumps in your mouth by simply saying the name! I must warn you that the book doesn't have simply every classic Italian dish. It does not, for example, include a recipe for Ragu Bolognaise (although it DOES have `Bistecca alla Fiorentina').

I am pleased that Ms. Caggiano includes a complete list of all recipes on the opening page of her chapters on each of the five cities. Following the recipes for each city are sections on the wines of the region; the city's Restaurants, Trattorie, and Wine Bars; food markets, specialty food stores, bakeries, and cooking schools; caffes, pastry shops, and other speciality shops.

The very last chapter covers `Basic Recipes' for broths, pasta dough, potato gnocchi (Roman style), basic polenta, and basic pie dough. These recipes demonstrate that Ms. Caggiano is a far better cook than the average Italian recipe hack. The description of her techniques lacks a lot of the finer background, but the actual instructions are equal to some of the best from Marcella Hazan.

I would not say this of Ms. Caggiano's other cookbooks, but of this I insist that even if you have a library of Italian recipe books, this one will be more enjoyable to read and a surer and faster source to dozens of classic and authentic Italian dishes than many bigger tomes. It doesn't have pizza and it doesn't have 50 spaghetti sauce recipes, but it's a great addition to the kitchen.

On a personal note, I'm tickled that Ms. B. includes New York City's Di Palo store in Little Italy as a source for Italian specialities (They make their own mozzarella and ricotta daily). I thought I had discovered them myself, until I found they were a darling of the Food Network NY venues and known to every important Italian chef in the business. But, I still consider them my own discovery.

A delightful book all around!

This book is fantastic!!! Yes it's full of essays and stories about her travels thoughout Italy, but its also about THE FOOD. Bibba provides the reasons and the history for why Italian food is so wonderful. As the previous reviewer mentioned the Chicken with potatos, pancetta, and herbs is delicious, as are other recipes in the book. I can't recommend this enough.

I love how this book is sectioned into 5 Italian cities: Rome, Florence, Bologna, Milan, and Venice. And at the beginning of each section is a 'full' restaurant menu with English translation. This is great to have if you plan to travel to Italy, since not all restaurants have English translation (and you may want restaurants that DON'T). Of course, the recipes for all of the mouth watering menu items then follow, as well as personal anecdotes that make this book so much fun to read. Tons of helpful tips for each recipe. Just reading the menus make me salivate!

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