Carluccio's Complete Italian Food

Maestro Carluccio hits the spot again with Complete Italian Food. Despite the title, it is not a comprehensive encyclopedia--how could it be, at 320 pages?--but a personal sampling of Italian food as it is still produced by traditional methods using traditional skills and materials: "real Italian food, where it comes from and why it tastes the way it does". Rather than work his way through the 20 regions of Italy, Carluccio has chosen to start with the foodstuffs themselves. A chapter is devoted to each category: Fish & Shellfish; Eggs, Poultry & Game; Fresh & Cured Meats and so on. Each contains an account of the place these foods hold in Italian culture and an A-Z of the most common individual ingredients, describing each briefly and noting differences in approach from region to region. A selection of recipes follows. It is with these that the book really rises to the heights. How does Carluccio do it? He seems to be able effortlessly to extract from the huge number of available recipes just those that will show up both the beauty of Italian food and its great range. The mushroom dishes are a good example of the deceptive simplicity at work here (fungi are a passion of Caluccio's): Taglierini Pasta with White Truffle; Procini in Oil; Cured Mixed Wild Mushrooms; Baked Kid with Cardoncelli; Judas Ears Sauteed with Garlic and Pasley; Grilled Porcini Caps with Garlic... So it continues, contributing to a wonderfully judicious and informative book. --Robin Davidson

View other editions of Carluccio's Complete Italian Food.
View books by Antonio Carluccio, Priscilla Carluccio.

Magnifico! - Rated
This book is brill... I got this book for my mum for christmas and she hasn't put it down yet, the food she has been making from it is delicious... sure it has lots of foods listed in there, but the book is fantastic and you've got to trust me on this one!
Chow

It is enitrely what it states to be..... - Rated
I have to disagree with the reviewer who said this book was a disappointment. It does not pretend to be a recipe book - not a traditional one at least. What it is, on the otherhand, is a complete guide to Italian food and cooking. There is a lot of priceless information, doubtlessly-well researched, about how the various ingredients work together, their availability in various regions, and, of course, mouth-watering recipes. What the previous reviewer failed to see, perhaps, was that the recipes given in this book are very easily adaptable, and having read the background info at the beginning of each chapter, one can very easily create a multitude of traditional Italian dishes, based on the recipes found within the same chapter.

I am a great fan of Italian cuisine, and a firm believer that cooking is an art, not a task. If all you need is a bible-full of straightforward recipes, with little or no background info, then perhaps something like The Silver Spoon would suit your needs better. However, if you enjoy adding your touch to the dishes you create, then Complete Italian Food is the book for you. It not only presents instructions....it makes the recipes work for you, and makes them so easily adaptable that before long you'll soon be creating your very own repertoire of Italian delicacies....your style!!!

Dissapointing - Rated
Don't be fooled about this being a cookbook, sure, it has some recipes in it, and those I've tried are good, but an Italian recipe book it isn't. What it is a a reference book of Italian foodstuffs a bit like The Book of Ingredients. It lists, exhuastively, every ingredient available to Italian cooks from North to South and throes in some uses for them. Antonio writes with passion but this is a shopping list; besides the really good stuff he mentions just isn't available in your local Waitrose. Save youselves the dissapointment and buy one of his more specific books instead.

Carluccio's Complete Italian Food - Rated
Stefano, Lymington, Hampshire, United Kingdom. To any lover of REAL Italian food this is a must have, informative, interesting and inspirational, from basic recipes to fine detail of regional cusine. Not for the frozen pizza and spag bol fan! A great read!

A comprehensive encylopedia of Italian food - Rated
I love the way this book is set out, each chapter is in alphabetical order, giving both the Italian and English for every food, advice on choosing produce and interesting sections on how certain foods are farmed, produced, and ways of cooking them. I am English and live in Italy and this has been my bible since certain types of food in the market, (fish, cheese, vegetables, etc) I could not even find in the dictionary let alone know how to be creative with. I would advise all expats in Italy to arm themselves with one of these and you will never have to ask anyone's help again - your cooking will always be wonderful and noone will ever tell you the English don't know how to cook.