Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History

The latest volume in the Art and Traditions of the Table series focuses on the cultural history of Italian cooking. With an authoritative command of the subject, Capatti and Montanari trace the changing vocabulary of Italy's earliest cookbooks from classical Latin to vernacular Italian, showing how this shift reflected the increasing significance of passing culinary skill from one generation to the next. Bit by bit, Italian cookbook writers also eliminated Gallicisms from their vocabulary to express the uniqueness of Italian cooking. Pleasures of the table then, as today, related to images of health and well being, the north favoring voluptuous fatness, the south tending to ascetic thinness. The authors limn the decline of the servant class and the gradual shift to femininity in the Italian kitchen. Contrary to contemporary emphases on Italian cookery as an agglomeration of microcuisines, Capatti and Montanari stress its unity across the nation. This relentlessly academic work has an impressive bibliography of historic Italian sources. Mark Knoblauch

Review
"An exhaustive and detailed investigation and will prove to be a valuable textbook for many foodies." – Economist "A scholarly, discursive exploration of techniques, taste, service and technology." – Times Literary Supplement "With an authoritative command of the subject, Capatti and Montanari trace the changing vocabulary of Italy's earliest cookbooks from classical Latin to vernacular Italian, showing how this shift reflected the increasing significance of passing culinary skill from one generation to the next… This relentlessly academic work has an impressive bibliography of historic Italian sources." – Mark Knoblauch, Booklist "Adds a world of history to our understanding, making the case for the existence of a true Italian culinary tradition in spite of the regionality of product… It is an engrossing, richly documented text." – Bell'Italia Magazine " Italian Cuisine is not simply another history." – Priscilla Ferguson, Journal of Modern History