Pasta Modern: New & Inspired Recipes from Italy
*Starred Review* Generally, a good cookbook is one with traditional and contemporary recipes, quality color photography, and clear instructions anyone can follow. A great cookbook includes all the above and educates us on every page, making us more knowledgeable culinarians. In her fifth cookbook (see also Dolci, 2011; The Opera Lover’s Cookbook, 2006), Segan not only fulfills the great vision but also enables us to virtually visit Italy’s 20 regions and savor its pastas. No piece of information is too arcane to omit. She’ll inform us about the passive cooking trend and different shapes of pasta, about the uniqueness of the Jerusalem artichoke and the richness of Carnevale foods. Segan will also not stint on the prefatory details (i.e., the basics) that quite a few authors rush through. She takes time to explain the how-to’s, selection process, and skill-building. But, oh, the pastas you’ll experience! Not content with the same ol’ same ol’, she identifies the ones most guaranteed to please American palates, whose names alone will seduce: ricotta bites, bucatini dome, trout and snails, meat and pear open ravioli, pancake pasta, and chocolate-stuffed shells. She lives up to her own billing, well demonstrating a “fierce, profound, and zealous reverence for Italian pastas.” Pasta glossary (in photographs) appended. --Barbara Jacobs