Breaking Bread in L’Aquila is the perfect Italian cookbook for those lacking a “nonna” to pass down the mouth-watering, fresh & zingy recipes of L’Aquila, Abruzzo, and Southern Italy.
This book’s author, the thoroughly modern NY-based signora Maria Filice, provides an effortlessly readable narrative. Superbly blending simple instruction with extensive background knowledge, the Italian-Canadian author stimulates curiosity & the stunning photography entices you to keep turning the pages whilst sipping a glass of one of Abruzzo’s very drinkable wines.
My favourite thing that Abruzzo’s four provinces share in their cooking style is that every dish allows each of the ingredients centre stage, albeit briefly; fresh flavours get to shine rather than have their unique spirit subsumed in an hotchpotch of overworked elements. Maria’s carefully selected 49 recipes combine this simplicity with a clever structure of flavours and in turn allow the flexibility to move & mix each day’s suggested menus according to the season, and of course your own personal favourite ingredients!
These are tried & tested recipes for those who want to impress with tasty & visually delightful dishes, but who don’t want to be tied to a stove and left feeling stretched & exhausted by the cooking process. Instead, you’ll be ready to share & enjoy each dish whilst catching up with friends & family like any good Abruzzesi; and if anyone wants to know the basics, you can direct them to the useful Abruzzo pantry page so that they too can stock up and get ready to cook.
Personally I always enjoy cookbooks that have a bit more meat to them, so to speak, than just a series of recipes reiterated tome-form in unimaginative homage. In this case it is a love story woven around and the author’s late husband, L’Aquila-born Paul Piccone, founder of the Telos Press. Paul introduced Maria to L’Aquila and the region of Abruzzo, and fortunately its culinary delights.
There is a song called ‘When Love Comes to Town’ by a very famous Irish rock band; this is an Italian cookbook for which those words resonate, particularly in the love that grew in the author for L’Aquila and which continues to develop as a result; all net profits from the sale of this cookbook will be donated to help the people that brought these yummy recipes to life, and who suffered in last year’s tragic earthquake.
Click here to buy Breaking Bread in L’Aquila US$ 29.95 + Shipping (Telos Press ships worldwide)
Read more about the Maria Filice on her blog Food & Fate
Sammy Dunham is a web marketing consultant, designing websites & writing copy to optimise web presence for her clients at webSEOlive. Past lives saw her studying in Firenze after which she taught History of Art & English and lived in Barcelona & The Bahamas. Keen on travel & photography, food & wine, co-editing LifeinAbruzzo.com is her perfect job.
Life in Abruzzo is an independent holiday & travel guide to Abruzzo is written from the magnificent Abruzzo Gran Sasso Mountains that grows daily. It is written for independent travellers who prefer to read an impartial review by somebody that has actually visited. We like to think of ourselves as the friends in Abruzzo that you don’t yet have, that share their tips off-the-beaten track sightseeing food & wine secrets from across the 4 provinces of Abruzzo; in short cherry picked Abruzzo.