The Oxford Companion to Italian Food [Paperback]

Universally acclaimed by the critics, and now available for the first time in paperback, here is an inspiring, wide-ranging, AZ guide to one of the world's best-loved cuisines. Designed for cooks and consumers alike,The Oxford Companion to Italian Foodcovers all aspects of the history and culture of Italian gastronomy, from dishes, ingredients, and delicacies to cooking methods and implements, regional specialties, the universal appeal of Italian cuisine, influences from outside Italy, and much more.

Gillian Riley here celebrates a heritage of amazing richness and delight. She brings equal measures of enthusiasm and expertise to her writing, and her entries read like mini-essays, laced with wit and gastronomical erudition, marked throughout by descriptive brilliance, and entirely free of the pompous tone that afflicts so much writing about food. TheCompanionis attentive to both tradition and innovation in Italian cooking, and covers an extraordinary range of information.

For anyone with a hunger to learn more about the history, culture and variety of Italian cuisine, TheOxford Companion to Italian Foodoffers endless satisfactions.

Italian Foodshouldn't remain on the shelf; instead, it should be savored. --Chicago Tribune

Exhaustive. --SaveurTop Ten Reads

Italian food buffs on your list may welcome a mini-encyclopedia that turns out to be almost an anti-encyclopedia: Gillian Riley's determinedly personal, quirky, wide-rangingThe Oxford Companion to Italian Food .--Anne Mendelson,The New York Times

Food historian and gastronome Gillian Riley's witty, expansive compendium deftly deconstructs everything from antipasto ( benign titillation of the palate with only a few delicacies ) to zeppole ( overkill can be achieved with a filling of custard ). --Bon Appetit

A magisterial (recipe-less) book that anyone even mildly interestlÃK