La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy
SynopsisPlot
They formed the Italian Academy of Cuisine to document classic recipes from every region. The academy’s more than seven thousand associates spread out to villages everywhere, interviewing grandmothers and farmers at their stoves, transcribing their recipes—many of which had never been documented before. This is the culmination of that research, an astounding feat—2,000 recipes that represent the patrimony of Italian country cooking. Each recipe is labeled with its region of origin, and it’s not just the ingredients but also the techniques that change with the geography. Sprinkled throughout are historical recipes that provide fascinating views into the folk culture of the past.
Story
About this book
La Cucina began as an effort to record what was at risk of disappearing. Around fifty years ago, scholars in Italy founded the Italian Academy of Cuisine with a specific mission: to document traditional recipes from every region of the country before they were lost. The academy eventually grew to include over seven thousand associates, who traveled to villages across Italy to interview home cooks, farmers, and grandmothers, writing down recipes that in many cases had never been formally recorded.
The result is a collection of roughly two thousand recipes, each labeled with its region of origin. The book treats Italian cooking not as a single tradition but as a patchwork of local ones, shaped by geography, climate, and available ingredients. Techniques shift from one area to another alongside the recipes themselves. Historical recipes appear throughout the collection, offering glimpses into older food customs and the everyday culture that surrounded them.
The scope of the project gives the book an unusual character. It functions less as a personal cookbook and more as a reference compiled through fieldwork, closer in method to ethnography than to the work of a single chef or food writer.
