The Da Fiore Cookbook : Recipes from Venice's Best Restaurant

Rating:
Summary: Genuine Venetian Cuisine, Worthy of the Hype
Review: Why would you want to buy another cookbook from an Italian restaurant, especially from one without a famous chef's name like Batali or Colicchio or Bartoli? I opened this book expecting to find reasons to dismiss this book as unworthy of our interest. I found no such reasons, and several reasons to give this book a reasonable amount of attention.

First, this is genuine Venetian cuisine, not Venetian cuisine interpreted by an American or English writer. The cuisine of the da foiore lives and breaths by the pulse of the Venetian fish markets and the seasons of fishing in the Adriatic. Recipes are also true to the region in focusing on rice and corn meal (polenta), and soft pasta dishes most common in the north, especially those close to the prime rice growing area in Europe. There is also an appropriate mix of Middle Eastern influences harking back to the days when Venice was THE spice merchant of Europe.

Second, the recipes are delightful, with a bright mix of the fish and an accompanying vegetable, changing slightly the Italian pairing of separate secondo and contorno dishes. I concur with the author's contention that these are indeed simple recipes. They may not be easy, but they should take less time than usual to master. Virtually all protein is seafood from the northern Adriatic, 'right off the boat'. There is a high concentration of bivalve, cephalopod (squid, cuddlefish, and octopus), shrimp, and finfish recipes. There are few lobster or crab dishes and beef, chicken, and veal are not even listed in the index.

Third, this may be an Italian cuisine which may be most familiar to Americans after the southern Italian tomato drenched cuisine of tomatoes, hard pasta, and pizza. I was never a great fan of Tuscan dishes, but this cuisine backed by the wines of the Veneto, Bardolino, Valpolicella, Soave, and Prosecco is much more attractive to me than the Chianti of Tuscony or the hundreds of newer wines from Italy on the market. Then there is also grappa to make life just a little more interesting.

My most delightful discovery in this book is to find the word, 'cicheti' for the Italian counterpart of the Greek and Turkish meze which has become a very popular subject of cookbook authors of late, who make a point of saying that Greek meze is not the same as antipasti. Another interesting discovery is that unlike much of the rest of Italy, Venetians are not horrified at the thought of putting cheese on fish, although they do not do it commonly with the very strong dried cheeses such as parmesan or pecorino romano.

Even though the book is written by a man, the true author of the recipes is the author's mother, true to the great Mediterranean tradition of cuisine being the woman's provence.

If you already have 20 or more Italian cookbooks, then you have to wrestle with your own obsessions to determine if this is worth the investment. At $35 without the celebrity byline, this may be a bit much, but I recommend it none the less, especially if you are a great fan of seafood.