My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking from Italy's Undiscovered South

by Rosetta Costantino, Janet Fletcher, Shelley Lindgren (Contribution by)

Overview

Recipes for easily accessible, fresh-from-the-garden Italian food from a Calabrian native and "bountiful good cook" (The Atlantic).
At the tip of Italy's "boot" lies Calabria. It is a beautiful, mountainous region populated by fishermen and small farmers. Rosetta Costantino grew up in this rugged landscape—her father a shepherd and wine maker and her mother his tireless assistant.
When her family immigrated to California, they re-created a little Calabria on their property, cooking with eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers from their garden, fresh ricotta made from scratch, and pasta fashioned by hand. A frugal people, Calabrians are master preservers, transforming fresh figs into jam, canning fresh tuna in oil, and sun-drying peppers for the winter. Now Rosetta shares her family's story and introduces readers to the fiery simplicity of Calabrian food. The first cookbook of a little-known region of Italy, My Calabria celebrates the richness of the region's landscape and the allure of its cuisine. This is a cookbook for our time: a reminder of how ingenious and resourceful cooks can create a gorgeous local cuisine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393065169
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/08/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Born and raised in Verbicaro, Calabria, Rosetta Costantino teaches cooking classes and lives in Oakland, California.

Janet Fletcher, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, is the author of numerous books on food and wine. She lives in Napa Valley.

Editorial Reviews

Recipes such as sagne chine (Calabrese lasagne), vruocculi ca' savuzuizza (sausage and broccoli rabe), and pipi 'mpajanati (sweet pepper fritters) highlight this brilliant, comprehensive cookbook by Calabrian-born Costantino (who now resides in Northern California) and Fletcher (cookbook author and San Francisco Chronicle columnist). And while the region is hardly undiscovered, as the subtitle suggests (there have been several book in recent years on the region, and it's a favorite vacation spot for northern Europeans), Costantino certainly digs deep into the cuisine, highlighting authentic recipes along with an insightful narrative. She offers recipes for pane calabrese, a thick-crusted bread with a soft, tangy middle that the region takes pride in: homemade ricotta cheese and swordfish rolls with breadcrumb stuffing. She offers explanations on Calabrese meats (soppressatta, spalla, salsiccia, 'nduja), cheeses (butirro, caciocavallo), pastas (cannaruozzoli, scilatelli, and the Arbëresh, or Albanian-influenced, couscous), as well as an entire chapter on preserves, such as fresh fig jam; mushrooms in oil with hot peppers (ubiquitous throughout Calabria), fennel and garlic; and a liqueur made from mandarin oranges. Costantino's cookbook offers home cooks a delightful journey along the toe of Italy's boot. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Writing with San Francisco Chronicle food columnist Fletcher, Costantino, who teaches cooking classes in San Francisco, introduces readers to her native Calabria, from its history to key ingredients like anchovies, canned tomatoes, canned tuna, capers, dried oregano, and olive oil. While these ingredients may seem a lot like those in other Italian food, the recipes are slightly different; Quick Tomato Sauce, for example, includes one small hot red pepper. Cooks new to Calabrian cooking are sure to enjoy Warm Christmas Doughnuts (made with yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes). Recipes are written for the beginning cook. Suggested wines and a list of ingredient resources are included. Highly recommended.

Library Journal