The Oxford Companion to Italian Food

A number of years ago I bought Antonio Piccinardi's Dizionario della Gastronomia Italiana, and have often turned to it to answer people's questions. It's a fascinating book, but for most people in the English speaking world has a major drawback: It's in Italian.

Gillian Riley's Oxford Companion to Italian Food is not, and if you like Italian food, or even cooking and culture in general, I can think of few books you'll find as interesting or as informative.

The Oxford Companion to Italian Food is organized like an encyclopedia, with entries in alphabetical order, and as you flip through the pages you'll be impressed by both the breadth of the coverage and the depth to which the authors (Gillian did have the help of some contributors) go in their replies.

For example, opening to page 422 we find entries for:

• Prosciutto (we're referred to ham and Parma ham)
• Provatura, a pulled buffalo-milk cheese similar to mozzarella
• Provola, an aged (or smoked) pulled cheese from the south
• Provolone, which is the same cheese made (by transplanted southerners) in the north, where the milk is richer and more abundant
• Provola di Floresta, a pulled cheese made from cattle that graze the pastures of Mount Etna, the highest in Sicily
• Prunes (we're referred to plums)
• Pudding
• The cooking of the region of Puglia, which continues for several pages

Pirciati, we learn a few pages before the above, are a long hollow kind of pasta similar to bucatini. Someone literal minded might be happy with this, but Gillian illustrates the the perfect sauce for pirciati with a delightful restaurant scene from one of Andrea Camilleri's Commissario Montalbano novels. Culture with your food, and when you finish the entry you'll probably add Camilleri to your list of must-read-authors (some of his books, in English).

In short, this is a fine book, and will also make a wonderful gift come the holidays. But don't flip through it if you're buying it as a gift, unless you buy a second copy, because you'll find yourself deciding to keep it.

Practical things:
The Oxford Companion to Italian Food
By Gillian Riley
Oxford University Press 2007
ISBN 978-0-19-860617-8
592 pages of glorious entries, from Abbacchio to Zuppa Inglese, followed by a lengthy bibliography and a very detailed index. Sound good? Buy it now!