SC - Opinions of Scully's Neapolitan Cuisine?

[grizly at mindspring.com]

Poong wrote:
> Greetings,
> I would like to get the opinion of people who have Terence
> Scully's Neapolitan Cuisine. (At $47.50 I need some assurances!)
>
> To me, when I read The Medieval Kitchen, I wanted to make almost
> every recipe. When I read Early French Cookery I found it
> interesting from an academic point of view, but it didn't make me
> want to run into my kitchen.
>
> Which one would you say Neapolitan Cuisine resembles?

Greetings,

If that is US Dollars, my opinion is that someone is trying to club you like a kosher duck for a piquant orange sauce.  If you cannot find it cheaper yet, it may be worth waiting to find a used copy; I got mine a year or more back when it first came out for in the range of $30 US.

As far as what it is and resembles, it is a book of original Medieval Italian text recipes followed by the English translations.  In addition, is a pretty interesting and informative discussion of the manuscripts and the text found therein.  There is a section of commentary on each individual entry as well.  A great volume for peopl who can derive recipes from the text . . . no worked out recipes.  I recommend it for the collection, but you'll need to decide the priority based on need for worked out recipes, interest in commentary and usefulness of that cuisine.  The first 8 recipes I cooked out of it got absolute raves last Spring that people still talk about today . . . that makes it worth my investment so far :o)

niccolo difrancesco