The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews II: More Menus, Recollections and Recipes
A true treasure of refined and elegant recipes, which reveal a   deep knowledge of technique and ingredients... --America Oggi, Dec 15, 1994Machlin not only offers a fascinating collection of 270 recipes,   menus and anecdotes, but exposes us to Italian history and culture --The Jewish Week, Dec. 11, 1992Some readers of this publication may be lucky enough to own the   original edition of the first volume of this wonderful book, published   in 1981. I can still remember my sense of excitement, reading the first   chapter's opening lines: "Pitigliano, the medieval village in Tuscany   where I was born and raised, was built on top of a titanic, boat-   shaped, tufaceous rock, with constructions heaped one on top of the   other as if they were an outgrowth of the rock itself....Like many   villages in that area, Pitigliano depended for its survival on small,   private farming and did not differ from (other nearby) villages except   for one important thing: it was the home of a large and culturally   important Jewish community." With those foew words I already knew that   what I held in my hands was not yet another compendium of regional   recipes, but a specific cluster of tastes and memories centered about a   particular cook, a woman-and, as it turns out, a wuite remarkable one   at that. Her story gave the recipes flavors that mingled those of the   kitchen with others from the world outside....The many good simple   dishes in this book lead us to understand that, whatever Italian   cooking may be, those who come by it as a birthright need no special   lessons. Edda Servi Machlin inhaled it in the aroma of the wood-smoke   of the baking ovens, saw it in the barrels of squirming (and tref) eels   in the little fruit and nut store beneath the family apartment, savored   it in the piece of toast dipped into the first-pressed olive oil of the   season, still warm from the mill....Now, a decade later, we have a   second volume, written very much in the spirit of the first...This book   is a self-portrait of a gifted Italian-Jewish cook of a certain age,   composed of the recipes with which she prepares her family's meals. In   this regard it seems an even more personal culinary statement than the   first. In a casual-seeming dish of simmered Swiss chard, she makes   distinctions-lemon and garlic with spinach, but vinegar and onion with   chard-that speak of years of polishing even the simplest dishes until   they become family favorites. Readers leave these pages inspired by   both the dishes and the example --John Thorne inCookbook, Issue No.6, Jan/Feb 1993This new rendering that touches the heart and stomach brings   back the same appetizing mix of Machlin's love of history, family,   heritage and fine cooking as her first book  --The Rhode Island Jewish Herald, Dec. 24, 1992