Gusto: The Very Best of Italian Food and Cuisine

Beautiful coffee table book!

This is not a recipe book! It is an encyclopedia of foods. It is not a book to sit down, read and get inspired. It is very informative - not for the novice.

Great book but it's huge! Definitely a coffee table book with excellent information and wonderful recipes

Book is massive! Weighs a ton. Not exactly a kitchen counter cookbook

it didn't meet my expectations. almost nothing about regional food.overall a waste of money and paper

nice

Gusto, more than a cookbook, it is a celebration of Italian cuisine and a guide to its essence, region by region, ingredient by ingredient, course by course. I have a lot of cookbooks and a few dedicated to Italian food among them, but none like this one. I recommend it very much not only to prepare scrumptious and authentic Italian dishes at home, but to get to deeply know the history and origin of each. This helps me a lot on my recent trip to Italia, so I didn't miss the essentials of Campania’s cuisine.(...)Each chapter of Gusto has an introduction to an ingredient that explains how it is used in Italian dishes and its origin, characteristics and varieties. Also gives us clues to learn to identify when they are fresh, teaches us how to clean them and cut them in house, with which other ingredients can go well, and includes simple recipes.For example, the first chapter is about pasta and will explain all varieties and which are typical of what region of Italy. It teaches you how to make homemade pasta, gives you tips for cooking it and includes several recipes. Continue with the different types of rice and cereals it leads to different types of flour, that great ally of Italian food which is the basis of their delicious breads, pizza, pasta and polenta. Following are the salt-water and fresh-water fishes, shellfish and crustaceans, with instructions for cleaning, and recipes. Then there are the different types of meat with charts showing cuts and animal part where they come from, how you cook them, what courses are they good for, how they are used in the preparation of sausages. And so on each kind of poultry, eggs, breads, vegetables, cheeses, pizzas, fruit, herbs, oils, spices, seeds, legumes, chocolate, coffee, cookies, desserts, ice cream and wine. Each ingredient has its own recipe and colorful photos and illustrations are sensational.- See more at: http://lacocinadevero.com/gusto-lo-mejor-de-la-comida-italiana-best-italian-cuisine/

Loaded with pretty pictures, 4,000 of them, in fact, and punctuated with the occasional recipe, but a little on the superficial side when it comes to understanding differences between regional cuisines.