Made in Italy: Food and Stories

I've got tens of Italian cookbooks and this is the one I would fight to keep. It's all well and good having 40 recipes for courgettes a la 'Silver Spoon', but good food is so much more than join-the-dots recipes. It's about fantastic ingredients and people and ideas and places and inspiration and stories and passion. 'Made in Italy' is all of these things tied together with beautiful photography by the obscenely multi-talented Dan Leppard.

Technically, there isn't anything in here that a confident amateur couldn't tackle. Some of it is time consuming, as good food can be, but there's certainly nothing here on the timescale and complexity of a French cassoulet. Some of the recipes are involved, but I want that in a cookbook. If all you ever do is make bruschetta, minestrone and pasta al forno then you will eat well but your cooking will probably never improve. If you don't want a challenge and don't want to spend a happy Saturday afternoon in the kitchen hand-making tortellini or perfecting the epic cannoli di ricotta then fair enough. Stick with, say, 'Jamie's Italy': an excellent, easy to follow introduction to Italian cooking that covers all of the classics.

The recipes are all outstanding, as you would expect from a chef of Locatelli's reputation. He delights in passing on his expertise and writes with warmth, honesty and humour. What really shines is the depth of background information on ingredients and dishes, and the detailed explanations of why things are done just so. I learned more about risotto, for example, from 'Made in Italy' than from the rest of my Italian food books put together. It's this fundamental understanding of what a dish is about that will make you a better cook. Much better.

Locatelli uses authentic ingedients and this is how it should be. What fits the dish fits the dish. Not all of these ingredients are readily available from your local Happy Shopper but he usually suggests alternatives, for example substituting Sardinian Ovinfort cheese (Google hits 241) with Gorgonzola (3,710,000). Of course if you want to make bottarga salad then you're going to need a slab of bottarga and that's what the Internet is for. The book is north-centric and better for it. It specialises. Italian food is not just pasta, oil and tomatoes whatever Saturday Kitchen would have you think.

If you want a workhorse book of recipes then get 'Silver Spoon', or on a smaller scale Elizabeth David's 'Italian Food' or Oliver's 'Jamie's Italy'. 'Made in Italy' is so much more than a recipe book. If you want to come that bit closer to understanding Italy and its food and people then buy Locatelli's book, read it and love it.

London Restaurant food, not Italian food (29/34 people found this helpful)

I have no doubt that Giorgio Locatelli is a genius of a chef, and I would love to eat at his restaurant. Whether I want to attempt to cook his restaurant's menu in my own kitchen is entirely a different matter.

One glance at the Contents page of this book - here called the Menu - will tell you that Locatelli is dealing in recipes which are almost impossible to make unless you have access to very unusual ingredients that are extremely difficult to buy in this country. Some of the recipes require a skill that is way beyond my capacity, but far too many others require access to specialist delis, fishmongers and grocers for goods that are simply impossible to acquire unless you live in London and spend all your time sourcing top-quality ingredients for your dinner. Every two months I drive 150 miles to a good Italian deli to stock up on salami, pancetta tesa and parmigiano, but I would have to give up my day job if I wanted to make half the dishes in this book.

It is also worth pointing out that Locatelli is very much a northern Italian cook - so if you want risottos and meat dishes, he is your man. But if you prefer southern Italian staples like seafood, tomato-based pasta dishes, suppli, pizza, baccala, peppers, capers, anchovies and olives - this is not Locatelli's style. It says everything that there are only 3 or 4 tomato-based pasta recipes in the book. At one stage, he tells us he does not use much olive oil, and does not like the strongly-flavoured oils when he does use them. This is not Italian cooking as most of us know it, it is certainly not cucina povera, and if you're like me, you'll enjoy the stories and take some of the technical tips in the book while giving most of the recipes a wide berth.

Molto Bella (7/8 people found this helpful)

Made in Italy is so much more than an Italian cookery book. As well as some superb recipes it also contains autobiographical accounts of Giorgio Locatelli's life and the history of Italy and Italian cooking.

Oh yeah, and it also looks great.

The risotto section itself is worth having the book for. It is so well written and easy to read that by the time you've cooked your risotto you know the complete history of rice, what happens to it when it's cooking and how the various regions of Italy cook risottos differently.

If you only buy one Italian cookbook, make sure it's this one.

The best cook book I've seen in a long time... (7/7 people found this helpful)

Wow, this is what you call a real cook book. Its such a beautiful book just to look at with really nice pictures throughout, but this is ust first impressions.
This is no book destined only for the coffee table (although it would look great there also) this is a book you can read from front to back. Like any really good book I just cant put it down.
For a cookery subject so well covered Locatelli has done well to produce such a high quality book. He is one of few famous chef's who has still got his feet on the ground, no pretense and willing to show you his little secrets and tips learned from years of training in Europe's best restaurants.
Locatelli discusses love afair with food from an eary age in Corgeno, how he has learned from his aunts and grandmother, working in the family hotel and pastry shop. He also tells of the huge regional differences in Italy and uncourages you to match produce from the same region (such as cheeses and cured meats) as this is how it will taste at its best.
This is a book I will treasure for long time, this is the sort of book that is helping to revolutionize cooking in the UK, and will uncourage people to be more passionate about what they eat whether that be Italian food or any other. Long live the revolution!

Bravissimo! (11/11 people found this helpful)

This is a truly wonderful book - beautiful to look at and handle, absorbing to read, and most importantly, fantastically instructive.

This book isn't just about recipes, but conveys lucidly and with passion the philosophy of food and eating in Italy, and allows readers develop an understanding of this approach that can be applied to any cooking, and not just recipes from this book. The sections on key ingredients and techniques are particularly useful.

This is, as other reviewers have noted, as far removed from the Jamie Oliver/Gordon Ramsey/Gary Rhodes approach as it is possible to get - and I think, all the better and no less accessible for it.

Many of the recipes are more 'restaurant like' than most day to day Italian cooking - but the Silver Spoon covers that more than adequately - however, most of the recipes can be made as simpler versions too.

I had the good fortune to eat in Locanda Locatelli recently; I'm now fully convinced that the man can do no wrong - bravissimo!

Made in Italy: Food and Stories

Giorgio Locatelli

Reader Reviews:

Il Maestro (7/7 people found this helpful)

London Restaurant food, not Italian food (29/34 people found this helpful)

Molto Bella (7/8 people found this helpful)

The best cook book I've seen in a long time... (7/7 people found this helpful)

Bravissimo! (11/11 people found this helpful)

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