Saturday, November 12, 2011

Cucina Povera, Then and Now

I review cookbooks, since I blog and own nearly 400 cookbooks, I guess that qualifies me! Anyway, thanks to Andrews McMeel for keeping my mail box full lately. I'm doing my best to keep up with the new stack to review.

A couple of the books are standouts, ones I will keep and treasure. This one, titled Cucina Povera, Italian for basically Peasant Cooking, made me stop and think. The book opens with stories from Italians who lived through hard times, often with World War II as a backdrop, and how the culture approached food during these difficult days. Food was revered, all the more because it was scarce. It was hunted, gathered, grown. Saved from scraps and reinvented for the next meal.

It's quite a contrast to our current economic crisis and the cheap calories, often in forms that do not resemble anything food.

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