The Food and Wine Lover's Companion to Tuscany

Rating:
Summary: Not much new, four years later?
Review: Carla Capaldo has updated her book originally published in 1998, giving readers a "New, Updated Version" with over forty new entries. That's an average of ten a year, which seems a bit light to my mind.
Her book-- regardless of the edition-- is a mix of restaurant recommendations, leads to wineries and enoteca, cheese shops, and also fattoria (farms) that offer such goods as olive oil, honey, etc. All well and good, but unless you are travelling all around Tuscany, over 95% of this book will be of little use.
That said, much of its value will be as armchair reading-- and here too, I have some problems, particularly with her organization. As might be expected, the entries are organized geographically-- but by a system that most readers will find baffling. For instance, San Gimignano appears in the section on Siena (it is in Siena Province) while its neighbor fifteen miles away, Volterra, appears in the same section with Pisa, many miles to the north. But many of the villages in the province of Florence, such as Panzano, Radda, and Greve have their own section-- Chianti Classico.
If it stopped there, one might eventually be able to discern what is where, but alas, the Index also compounds the confusion by listing entries alphabetically and then by offering, so we have Beekeepers, Bakeries, Candymakers, Chocolate Makers, Pastries, Biscuits, and Cakes, and Pastry Makers and Shops. Pity the person who is trying to recall where he/she had a nice pastry and coffee, followed by a gelato and perhaps a candy for the child!
Another cavil-- in the '98 edition, one entry includes this sentence: "By the time you visit,...may have completed their extension: the 'little shop' will be enlarged to add a tasting room 'for friends." That same sentence, verbatim, is also in the 2002 edition. Granted, renovations can take a little while in Italy, but I strongly suspect that the author simply neglected to revisit the shop in question, and revise her book accordingly!

If you are ONLY going to Tuscany, then this book may be of some use. If your travel plans include other regions of Italy (and they should), Faith Heller Willinger's "Eating in Italy" is far superior (though older) and there are several superior guides for serious enophiles.