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Naples
At Table: Cooking In Campania; More Than 250 Recipes From Avellino,
Benevento, Caserta, Salerno, The Amalfi Coast, Capri And Ischia
by Arthur Schwartz
New York: HarperCollins, 1998. 436p.
Order Naples At Table:
From the jacket:
Arthur Schwartz, popular radio host, cookbook author, and veteran
restaurant critic, invites you to join him as he celebrates the
food and people of Naples and Campania. ... the cradle of Italian-American
cuisine.... In Naples At Table, Arthur Schwartz takes a fresh
look at the region's major culinary contributions to the world --
its pizza, dried pasta, seafood, and vegetable dishes, its sustaining
soups and voluptuous desserts -- and reveals the recipes for some
of Campania's lesser-known specialties as well. Always, he provides
all the techniques and details you need to make them with authenticity
and ease.
Naples At Table is the first cookbook
in English to survey and document the cooking of this culturally
important and gastronomically rich area. Schwartz spent years traveling
to Naples and throughout the region, making friends, eating at their
tables, working with home cooks and restaurant chefs, researching
the origins of each recipe. Here then are recipes that reveal the
truly subtle, elegant Neapolitan hand with such familiar dishes
as linguine with clam sauce, baked ziti, eggplant parmigiana, and
tomato sauces of all kinds.... This is the Italian food the world
knows best, at its best. -- bold and vibrant flavors made from few
ingredients, using the simplest techniques. Think Sophia Loren!
(And check out her recipe for Chicken
Cacciatore.) Rediscover how truly delicious and satisfying,
even healthful, Campanian favorites can be -- from vegetable dishes
like stuffed peppers and garlicky greens, to pasta sauces ranging
from many you can make while the spaghetti boils to the Neapolitans'
famous long-simmered ragu, redolent with the flavors of meat and
red wine. ... All are wonderfully old-fashioned and familiar, yet
in the hands of a Neapolitan, strikingly contemporary and ideal
for today's busy cooks and nutrition-minded sybarites.
Finally, what better way to feed a sweet
tooth than with a Neapolitan dessert? ... Arthur Schwartz predicts
that the region's easily assembled refrigerator cakes -- delizie
or delights --are going to replace tiramisu on America's tables.
In any case, one bite of Zuppa Inglese, the Neapolitan spin on English
trifle, and you'll be singing "That's Amore."
A trip with Arthur Schwartz to Naples and
its surrounding region is the next best thing to being there. Join
him as he presents the best traditional and contemporary foods of
the region, and shares myth, legend, history, recipes, and reminiscences
with American fans, followers and fellow lovers of all things Italian.
Praise for Naples At Table
Arthur Schwartz's Naples At Table has "captured the
wonders of Naples cooking and all that goes with it. The book is
both learned and sensual ... Just reading the recipes makes me hungry...This
Christmas I gave NAPLES AT TABLE to friends who like cookbooks,
and now I'm thinking of going to Naples in the summer. That's how
much I loved it."
- Irene Sax, epicurious.com
One of "The New Classics:" ... "As Schwartz makes
happily clear, the food of this southern seaport city encompasses
not only pizza but also Peppered Mussels, Prosciutto Brioche and
Smothered Escarole. The information is encyclopedic."
- Ann Hodgman, Food & Wine
"Arthur Schwartz's king-size introduction to Neapolitan cooking
.. .has that labor-of-love air you find in books by Americans who
feel an almost religious mission to share the pleasure they take
in some other place. By exploring everything -- but everything --
about the general region of Campania as if it were irresistibly
fascinating, Schwartz makes it so ... This is as close as you can
get to total immersion in Naples by reading and cooking."
- Anne Mendelson, Gourmet
"How did America get so far into the Italian food craze without
a single work on a region so crucial in shaping the Italian American
culinary identity? Never mind. Now we have one that's illuminating,
inviting, funny, thoughtful and unabashedly personal."
- Los Angeles Times
"Arthur Schwartz was born to write this fabulous book full of dishes
on every page you will instantly want to try. The notes are both
wholly informative and dead-on accurate, the recipes clear, the
illustrations excellent, and at $27.50 for 250 recipes spread over
430 pages, this is the bargain of the decade."
- John Mariani, Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter
" ... a labor of love for WOR's "Food Talk" host, Arthur Schwartz
... blunt, impudent, passionate voice of the people that he his
... I plan to use it as my travel guide to Naples."
- Gael Greene, New York Magazine
"Naples At Table is full of little insights ... myth-shattering
asides ... history and legend...Most important, of course are the
well-written, immensely varied recipes. Neapolitan cuisine is said
to be one of Italy's greatest ... Sampling dishes ... as Schwartz
presents them, this is easy to believe."
- Colman Andrews, Saveur
" ... simple, straightforward and traditional recipes ... informative
and often amusing commentary also make this a pleasant page turner."
- The Washington Post
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