2018 will in future be known as the year of the Great West Norwood Cookbook Cull. But which books to get rid of, and which to keep? The Random Recipe Adventure will help us decide (you can read a bit more about the premise here). Each week, a book will be taken from the shelves, examined, and cooked from. Losers go to Oxfam – winners stay on the shelves, with a promise that they will no longer be neglected quite as much as they have been for the last decade or so.
WEEK 5
The book
Gastronomy of Italy, by Anna del Conte
How/where/when did I get it?
After last week’s debacle, in which I failed to remember that a book had been given to me for Christmas by my own brother, I hesitate to comment. But this has the feel of something my mother would have given me. Or, to hedge my bets a bit, my brother. Probably for Christmas. Some time ago.
Have I used it since then?
Yes and no. I look things up in it from time to time, as it has an excellent glossary at the back. And it’s been a useful resource for ideas, but if I’ve followed actual recipes from it, they’ve been expunged from my memory. Which, given my recent record, is no guarantee of anything.
So what about it?
On the one hand, it’s Anna del Conte, so is obviously going to stay on the shelves. She’s one of the best.
On the second hand, this is more than just a cookbook. As well as 200 recipes, there are 40 pages on the history of Italian gastronomy, 140 devoted to an A-Z of ingredients and techniques, and another 30 or so on Italian wines. It’s a reference book as much as a recipe collection, and will remain on the shelves, if only so I can check what cefalo and beccaccia are (grey mullet and woodcock, in case you’re interested).
But on the third hand (I am apparently well endowed in that department), when it comes to using it for cooking, there are a couple of problems. Firstly, it’s big and glossy – coffee-table-esque, and almost too good-looking to splash with oil and gravy. Almost. There are plenty of attractive illustrations of the food which add little to the cooking experience (mine, anyway), although their perfection does offer a handy comparison with my own efforts – a comparison guaranteed to make the heart sink faster than an imperfectly souffléd soufflé. My favourite kind of cookbook is illustrated either sparsely or not at all, and the greater the preponderance of glossy pics the more my faith in a book’s usefulness is eroded. I’m letting Anna del Conte off because she’s a goddess. But the size and glossiness have, over the years, conspired to put me off using it on a regular basis.
What Did The Random Recipe Generator throw up?
A terrific potato cake filled with mozzarella and prosciutto. If I’d had faith in my own instincts and cooked it for five minutes more, the mozzarella would have reached peak ooze and we’d have had a classic on our hands. As it is, I’ll know better next time, and have made a little note in the margin to that effect.
I also cooked:
Pasta ‘Ncasciata, A Sicilian pasta pie which tasted delicious enough but which fell between two stools: not posh enough for a dinner party dish (not that we give dinner parties these days; nor, for that matter, would we cook ‘posh’ dishes for them even if we gave them, but you get the idea), and too much faff for a family supper. Frying thin slices of aubergine to act as a sort of soft crust or wrapping for the pasta pie = faffissimo and entails taking the week off what I laughingly call ‘work’. Plus you need all the olive oil and then another ‘all the olive oil’, followed by a bit more olive oil.
More pasta: ziti with tuna, anchovies and tomato. It would have been even better if a) I’d had really posh tins of tuna to hand and b) I’d ever cooked ziti before. They’re pasta tubes, like broad spaghetti-length macaroni. The problem with this is that on placing (thin) spaghetti in plentiful boiling water they usually fold quickly enough to ensure even cooking; ziti are not thin, so the first four minutes of the cooking process involved me desperately squishing them down bit by bit to make sure they cooked evenly. Memo to self: either get a really tall pasta cooker (don’t do this) or don’t cook ziti again (this option – choose this option).
Pollo alla cacciatora. Yes. I say yes.
Peas with prosciutto. Double yes.
The Verdict: Keeper or Chucker.
Keeper. I told you, it’s by Anna del Conte.
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All right. I’ll let you keep this one.:)