Product Description

From basic broth to simple pasta-and-bean soup to marvelous meals-in-a-pot, here are over 150 tasty soups for every appetite and every season--from the author of THE JOY OF GRILLING, THE JOY OF PASTA, and the James Beard Award-winning CELEBRATIONS. Try hearty, winter-weather soups from Northern Italy; Fresh Asparagus Soup for spring; Umbrian Roasted Tomato Soup in season; Garlicky Mussels in Broth anytime, and much more. Illustrated .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231045 in Books
• Published on: 1997-01-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Library Journal
Both Famularo and Wasserman-Miller stress the regional nature of Italian soups, and both include dozens of traditional recipes for minestre and minestrone, brodo, and zuppe. But Famularo, who grew up in a large Italian-American household, has a more personal approach, while Wasserman-Miller, who fell in love with Italy on her first visit there and later opened a Boston food shop called Formaggio, takes a somewhat more formal one, with more explanations of basic techniques and culinary background. Famularo includes many fondly remembered family recipes as well as favorites from his travels to Italy; Wasserman-Miller's collection seems a bit more wide-ranging, featuring some less well-known recipes along with the classics. Although there is some overlap here, of course, the two authors' approaches and interpretations of the traditional recipes are different enough to make both these books worth adding to most collections; they're also good companions to Margaret and G. Franco Ramagnoli's Zuppa! (LJ 12/96).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap
After a zealous soup quest across the length and breadth of Italy, Joe Famularo presents 150 Italian soups for every occasion and mood. There are soups to start a meal and soups to make a meal. Humble soups, born of necessity during leaner times, and the inventive soups of professional chefs. Seasonal soups, regional soups, family soups. Vegetable soups and pasta soups, fish soups and meat soups, bean soups and rice soups.

But behind the great variety of soups are the qualities found in all true Italian cooking-simplicity, integrity, ingenuity, and the use of only the best ingredients. A fat bunch of spring's first asparagus, lightly cooked and then added to a broth of arborio rice, creates an incomparable Sauteed Asparagus Soup. Glistening fresh fish, angel hair pasta, and two handfuls of peas, is transformed into minestra di pesce con piselli e capelli d'angelo-a dazzling fish soup from Liguria on the Italian Riviera.

Other soups, like the minestrones, reveal yet another side of Italian cuisine-its marvelous regional character. In mountainous Abruzzi, pork is used as a flavor base while fresh fennel and mint make it indescribably lush. Romans, meanwhile, favor a minestrone founded on beef and beef broth, red beans and red wine. The Milanese add rice to theirs, the Genovese pesto and pasta, and the Calabrians give an unexpected flourish to a tomato- and garlic-based minestrone with a shower of slivered yellow peppers.

Delicious, naturally healthy, and with a depth of flavor that satisfies right down to the bones, Italian soups nourish body and soul. And from basic brodo (broth) to meal-in-a-pot minestrone, Joe Famularo serves them up.

From the Back Cover
ONE OF THE BEST KEPT SECRETS OF ITALY IS SOUP . . . and Joe Famularo knows it. With his new book, Joe gives us straightforward, easy-to-follow, mouthwatering recipes that capture the hearth and soul of Italy. I truly enjoyed it. Grazie, Joe!" -Biba Gaggiano, TV host and author of From Biba's Italian Kitchen

More than 150 recipes from Tuscan Grandmothers and bustling Roman restaurants, rustic inns and regional cooks.

THE SIMPLE

Herbed Chickpea Soup, page 119. "Little Soup" of Fresh Clams with Wine, page 212. Chicory and Rice Soup, page 139. Fresh Asparagus Soup Vicentino.

THE TRADITIONAL

Ribollita from Tuscany. Malfattini in Broth, Romagna Style. Hedy's Venetian Rice and Pea Soup. Cabbage Soup with Cheese and Cinnamon.

THE EXUBERANT

Cioppino. Fragrant Tomato Soup with Fresh Basil. Escarole Soup with Meatballs. Mama's Zucchini Soup with Poached Eggs. Chicken Soup with a Whole Stuffed Chicken.

PLUS 9 different minestrones. 10 paste e fagiolis. Broths and breads. Family secrets and cooking tips, and favorite soup spots in Italy.

Customer Reviews

Rich and Hearty Italian Soups!!!!
Any excuse to buy another soup cookbook is a good one for me. The large words "Italian Soup" written across the cover was all it took for this one to end up in my shopping bag. Recipes range from amazingly simple to time consuming but worth the work. These are recipes that you'd expect to have passed down lovingly, with each recipient making it their own along the way.

There are no pictures in this cookbook but the descriptions do the recipes justice all on their own. Each recipe is listed by its English name, its Italian name shown underneath. Chapter titles, listed English over Italian, appear only in Italian on each page header. For visuals, a decorative green strip borders the page edges and there are drawings done in orange interspersed throughout. A very well done index is also provided at the end of the cookbook.

The "Sautéed Asparagus Soup" is a super simple soup that contains so few ingredients you wonder how it could possibly be any good. But it is! I found myself making it whenever I was short on time and ideas. Like most soups, it reheats well and tastes even better the next day. For the most part, soups contained here can be made in under an hour (after preparation of ingredients).

"Pasta and Beans with Fennel and Sausage" is great when company's coming and you don't want to have to fix a lot of food. A nice salad served along side this rich and filling soup and you'll elicit compliments and requests for seconds.

Soup is typical considered a great food for dieters though with these recipes, I would suggest going over the ingredients lists carefully. Many ask for a good helping of cheese in or on top of. Some use bread, rice, or potatoes as thickeners, the meat-based soups use fairly fatty meats, and butter is used most often to cook in.

If you are looking for meal type soups, miss your grandmother's Old Country cooking, or just enjoy soups like I do, this is a not to be missed cookbook. You can turn to any page and feel comfortable that the results will be fantastic.

A downright miracle
I'm not a cook. But during winter months especially, I do make a few soups to help in the household. And this book is the one I usually use as my guide. I need a recipe. I need recipes that are foolproof. And here is where I get them. Not only does every recipe end in a soup that is edible, but one that is tasty and repeatable. That, with this "cook", is downright miraculous! There is variety here, a learning experience, and in the end a soup that is invariably a tasty success. And I'm not even Italian.

Dazzling
This collection is one of my favorite soup cook books (I have over 20). The recipes are outstanding and the variety is great. Who knew that there are so many different recipes for minestrone? This cook book is the type I love to just pick up and read, and the author includes many warm vignettes or his family memories associated with these recipes. Unfortunately, though, there are no pictures of these excellent soups.