[Sca-cooks] New work : Italian Cuisine

[johnna holloway]

Another book due out from Columbia Uinversity Press is
Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History (Arts and Traditions of the Table)
by Alberto Capatti, Massimo Montanari, Aine O'Healy (Translator)

October 2003; 400 pages; ISBN: 0231122322 $35.

"Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari uncover a network of culinary 
customs, food lore, and cooking practices, dating back as far as the 
Middle Ages, that are identifiably Italian:
o Italians used forks 300 years before other Europeans, possibly because 
they were needed to handle pasta, which is slippery and dangerously hot.
o Italians invented the practice of chilling drinks and may have 
invented ice cream.
o Italian culinary practice influenced the rest of Europe to place more 
emphasis on vegetables and less on meat.
o Salad was a distinctive aspect of the Italian meal as early as the 
sixteenth century."

Massimo Montanari has written a number of food books and is co-editor of 
Food: A Culinary History (Columbia, 1999).
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023112/0231122322.HTM

Johnnae llyn Lewis