For the past month I’ve been clawing my way out from under a mountain of new food and drink books strategically published in time for the holidays, when many folks are concerned with peace on earth, what to buy, and what to eat—not necessarily in that order. I’m going to vouch for my favorites here; the rest (including half a dozen more Chicago-related titles) will be covered on our blog The Food Chain at chicagoreader.com.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
THE OXFORD COMPANION TO ITALIAN FOODGillian Riley Oxford University Press | $35
The third volume in what promises to be a classic series on world food and drink. Riley, a British food historian, displays the same combination of exhaustive scholarship and English drollery that made Alan Davidson’s Oxford Companion to Food (1999) both indispensable and a blast to read. The factoids are endless: ambergris, the perfumy effluvium from sick sperm whales, was once used as an ingredient in appertivi; medieval Italian followers of Hippocrates believed that cumin could impart a scholarly pallor to students who’d been playing hooky. If nothing else, the beguiling descriptions of products like salame d’oca (goose salami) and vignarola (a legume-based Roman spring vegetable antipasto) show how much Italian food has yet to make it to the New World.
1080 RECIPESSimone and Ines Ortega Phaidon | $39.95
Oysters aren’t as endlessly diverse as cheeses, but perhaps even more than wine they can be identified and appreciated according to the geographical and physical characteristics of their place of origin. Like Werlin, Jacobsen seeks to demystify a vast subject, first breaking down North American bivalves into their five species, then mapping out their differences along the coasts and in international waters. Armed with this kind of intel it’s no sweat to distinguish a Cuttyhunk from a Kusshi.
The superchef with Jesus on his side issues another lovely volume, this time focused on Italian sandwiches, antipasti, and small plates, from the simple (rapini with garlic) to the fanciful (razor clams casino) to the labor-intensive (stuffed zucchini blossoms).v
