Eating in Italy: A Traveler's Guide to the Hidden Gastronomic Pleasures of Northern Italy

• Paperback - 04 March, 1998 - Morrow Cookbooks
• Usually ships in 24 hours
• By: Faith H Willinger
• ISBN: 0688146147

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About this book

Grab this book and your forchetta (fork) and head to Italy for a tantalizing tour of tastes. Faith Heller Willinger is an American living in Italy who has devoted her taste buds to sampling and reporting on the best Italian kitchens have to offer. If you think Italian food equals pizza and spaghetti, the variety of offerings found in the 11 northern regions explored in this book will astound you. Each regional section begins with helpful explanations of Italian dishes from local menus. Next, the wine and food specialties are temptingly presented with interesting tidbits about production methods and historical origins. For example, grissini, yard-long breadsticks of the Piemonte region, were first made in 1668, when "the Savoia court doctor, Don Baldo Pecchio, had the court baker whip up some crunchy, thin and easily digestible breadsticks for the sickly Prince Vittorio Amadeo II, who suffered from 'intestinal fevers.'" Each section is finished off with a listing of restaurants and inns, organized by city. If you aren't sated yet, Eating in Italy also provides gelato flavors, a key to Italian opening and closing hours, types of pasta, wine terminology, and a food glossary.

Other books you may find interesting

• Italy for the Gourmet Traveler
• Trattorias of Rome, Florence, and Venice
• The Food and Wine LoverÆs Companion to Tuscany: Completely Revised, Updated and Expanded
• Walking and Eating in Tuscany and Umbria: Revised Edition
• Eating & Drinking in Italy: Italian Menu Translator and Restaurant Guide, Fourth Edition (Open Road Travel Guides)
• Piazzas and Pizzas: Adventures of the Clean Plate Club in Italy
• The City of Florence: Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings
• Sandra Gustafson's Great Sleeps Italy
• Desiring Italy: Women Writers Celebrate the Passions of a Country and Culture
• Italian Days
• Living in Tuscany
• Tuscany & Umbria (Charming Small Hotel Guides: Tuscany & Umbria)
• Central Italy: The Collected Traveler: Tuscany and Umbria

Reviews by readers

An Indispensible Guide to Northern Italian Eateries

I've made something like ten pleasure trips to Italy in the past decade, and for me, this is easily the best dining resource IN PRINT. In this Internet age, there are additional ways to garner some information about Eating in Italy, but it you aren't too interested in the "new, hot, trendy" etc., this is definitely money well spent.
There are other books I draw upon, including Sandra Gustafson's "Cheap Eats In Italy," Maureen Fant's "Trattorias of Rome, Florence, and Venice," and the guides from the Time Out series. But kilo for kilo, this is the one I use most frequently, especially if you wander away from Rome-Florence-Venice.
Many of her recommendations also pop up (as citations) in some of the better travelogues--- for instance her writing is cited in books such as "The Collected Traveler-- Central Italy" collected by Barrie Kerper and the recently issued "Piazzas and Pizzas-- the Adventures of the Clean Plate Club in Italy."
Worth every penny, Euro, or late, lamented Lire that you spend.

Would not go to Italy without Faith's latest book!

This was our second trip to Italy using Faith's guide to help us find local markets. We were invited to prepare a celebration dinner at a villa for family/friends in Tuscany. We were able to locate all the special ingredients we needed for the feast which lasted 6 hours and ended with a standing ovation. It was a dream come true. Before and after the week at the villa, we traveled in Italy, also relying on Faith's excellent recommendations. She reports that she is currently writing a book for Southern Italy. You can bet we will plan a return visit when it becomes available. Faith has foodie tours of Florence and offers small cooking classes, as well. Check out her website.

Great Guide, But Out of Date

This is a most excellent guide to the food of northern Italy, maybe the ONLY comprehensive guide in English to that vast and delectable region. It covers a huge range of cuisines from the rustic simplicty of Tuscany to the highly inflected Franco-Savoyard provincial foods of the Val d'Aosta. It gives special attention to the rich traditions of Emiglia-Romagna, especially Bologna. It also does a fine job of sampling the gamut of local offerings, from simple but excellent family kitchens to the greatest restaurants.

Unfortunately, the book is out of date. Last updated in 1998, I have found that maybe one third of its listings are now defunct, and many more can no longer be reached at the phone/fax numbers listed. I am currently planning a trip to Arezzo, Pisa, Assisi, Bologna, and Modena, and many of the restaurants I wanted to visit no longer exist. Still, the larger, more established restaurants and the older more established family kitchens tend to have the same contact information that they did eight years ago.

Please join with me in encouraging the author and publisher to revise and reissue this great guide. I'd love to see it as a supplement to the Fodor's Italy guide, which is generally excellent but provides only cursory coverage of food.

Please note that my rating is somewhat arbitrary given that the book has become largely obsolete.

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