Naples at Table: Cooking in Campania [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Naples gave the world pizza and spaghetti with tomato sauce. In Naples at Table, Arthur Schwartz reveals the unexpected breadth and depth of dishes to be enjoyed in Naples and throughout Campania, the rich region where this culinarily underappreciated city is located.

Campania is the home of mozzarella. In fact, by Italian law, only cheese made from the milk of the water buffalo of Campania should be bear this name; the cow's-milk cheese we call mozzarella is more rightly called fior di latte, "flower of the milk."

To most people, southern Italy is the land of red sauce, from the light salsa insalata, made with raw tomatoes marinated in olive oil and seasoned with salt and basil, to hefty, long-simmered, meat-flavored ragu. Schwartz introduces us to La Genovese, an onion-based sauce Neapolitans began making centuries before the tomato arrived from the New World so they could pair it with its soul mate, pasta.

Anyone interested in Italian food will find the more than 250 recipes and the almost overwhelming wealth of information in Naples at Table fascinating. There is history, going back to the ancient Greeks, and stories as only Schwartz can recount them. One of the best is how Zuppa Inglese may have gotten its name. Discover Woodman-Style Baked Pasta with Meat Sauce and Mushrooms; lusty Baccalà "Arrecanato," a casserole of salt cod and potatoes; an authentic Zuppa Inglese; and so much more as you travel around Campania with Schwartz, meeting chefs and home cooks from Naples and Salerno, Benevento up in the mountains, out along the Amalfi coast, and the jewel-like islands of Ischia and Capri. --Dana Jacobi

..".simple, straightforward and traditional recipes...informative and often amusing commentary also make this a pleasant page turner."-- "The Washington Post""Arthur Schwartz's "Naples at Table" has captured the wonders of Naples cooking and all that goes with it. The book is both learned and sensual...Just reading the recipes makes me hungry...This Christmas I gave "Naples at Table" to friends who like cookbooks, and now I'm thinking of going to Naples in the summer. That's how much I loved it."-- Irene Sax, epicurious.com"I made 'Bucatini alla Caruso, ' named for the tenor Enrico Caruso, who loved to prepare it for his friends in Brooklyn, singing his way from restaurant to restaurant...Although I did not sing as I served, my friends did sing my praises...claiming it was one of the best pasta dishes they've ever had. The leftovers were even good the next day, reheated with supplements of garlic, tomato and ricotta."-- Erica Schachter, "Wall Street Journal""As Arthur Schwartz makes happily clear, the food of this southern seaport city encompasses not only pizza but also Peppered Mussels, Prosciutto Brioche and Smothered Escarole. The information is encyclopedic."-- Ann Hodgman, "Food & Wine""Arthur Schwartz's king-size introduction to Neapolitan cooking...has that labor-of-love air you find in books by Americans who feel an almost religious mission to share the pleasure they take in some other place. By exploring everything -- but everything -- about the general region of Campania as if it were irresistibly fascinating, Schwartz makes it so...This is as close as you can get to total immersion in Naples by reading and cooking."-- Anne Mendelson, "Gourmet.".".a labor of love for WOR's'Food Talk' host, Arthur Schwartz...blunt, impudent, passionate voice of the people that he is...I plan to use it as my travel guide to Naples."-- Gael Greene, "New York Magazine""How did America get so far into the Italian food craze without a single work in a region so crucial in shaping the Italian American culinary identity? Never mind. Now we have one that's illuminating, inviting, funny, thoughtful and unabashedly personal."-- "Los Angeles Times""Arthur Schwartz has long been enamored of the foods of southern Italy. Here he shows that the same cuisine which in its Americanization has perhaps become too rich and heavy can be as subtle as the trendier cuisine from Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany."-- Dale Salm, "Connecticut Magazine""Arthur Schwartz was born to write this fabulous book full of dishes on every page you will instantly want to try. The notes are both wholly informative and dead-on accurate, the recipes clear, the illustrations excellent, and...for 250 recipes spread over 430 pages, this is the bargain of the decade."-- John Mariani, "Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter"