A Blissful Feast: Culinary Adventures in Italy's Piedmont, Maremma, and Le Marche

by Teresa Lust

Moving from the Italian Piedmont to the Maremma and then to Le Marche, chef Teresa Lust interweaves portraits of the people who served as her culinary guides with cultural and natural history in this charming exploration of authentic Italian cuisine.


We learn how to prepare bagna cauda—a robust dipping sauce of anchovies, garlic, and olive oil—with Lust’s relatives outside Torino. We learn about making hand-stretched grissini, Italy’s iconic breadstick, the secrets of whipping up zabaione, a classic dessert of ethereal foam made with egg yolks, sugar, and marsala. Then there is acquacotta, a rustic soup that nourished generations of the area’s shepherds and cowhands. In the town of Camerano, an eighty-year-old woman reveals the art of hand-rolling pasta with a three-foot rolling pin.


Underpinning Lust’s travels is our journey from chef to cook, mirroring the fact that Italians have been masters of home cooking for generations, so they are an obvious source of inspiration. Today, more and more people are rediscovering the pleasures of cooking at home, and Lust’s account—and wonderful recipes—will help readers bring an Italian sensibility to their home tables.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Italian Literature, Travel, Nonfiction, Foodie, Cooking

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March 3, 2020

Reviews

[Joan Stroh · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the book was well written, I found too often my mind drifted as I was reading it. Initially, I was struggling to understand why the book couldn't capture my complete and undivided attention until I noticed that within every chapter the author stopped writing about her experience and gave me a detailed history of an ingredient. I realized that this wasn't just a memoir of a woman spending time with family, or learning to be an excellent home cook while learning the language as if she were a native of Italy, but it was also a reference guide. It was the combination of the memoir + reference guide that made it increasingly difficult to stay connected. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the memoir portions and am excited to try the recipes.

[Cheryl Bentley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book, savored reading this book. I have marked several chapters with the intent of rereading about ricotta, for example, and trying a couple of the recipes Lust includes. At the same time, I wasn't compelled to turn the page. I sort of preferred to read a chapter or two and then put the book down for awhile. So the book has taken me months to read but has always been a reliably enjoyable way to spend a quiet hour or so. Nothing wrong with that.

[Zachary Mezz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little account with particularly interesting chapters focusing on grissini and stoccafisso.

[Alissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want so much to finish this book, because Teresa Lust is such a lovely person with an openness toward other people and cultures that makes you want to like her. I also very much enjoyed Pass the Polenta and thought this would work for me too.

Unfortunately, I've been trying to finish this book for months and finally have had to abandon it. I'm not sure why it doesn't quite come together--maybe it needs a stronger through line? Maybe the personal narratives aren't weighty enough to hold down each chapter? One chapter that does work, though, is the one where she's lost in the woods, but no one should have to go through such an event to create an essay.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The trouble with going to the less traveled spots is that sometimes it is hard to find books that cover said regions. I have an acquaintance who travels extensively and often who swears by travel blogs as a source from which to plan your trips. She travels off the beaten path, and I am seeing the wisdom of her way.
So I picked this up because it starts in Piedmont, a region that I am traveling to very soon. The author's maternal grandparents came from the Italian Piedmont, and it's there that she begins her what is part memoir, part recollection of culinary lessons and cultural insights in three parts of the country. The book contains more than 35 recipes for the likes of braised rabbit with white wine and rosemary, breakfast biscotti, and tagliatelle made with fresh eggs, the real instruction comes through the stories Lust tells about the cooks who fed her and whom she worked alongside to learn how to cook regionally in Italy.
Ancient and contemporary Italy overlap in her stories of cooks and marketplaces, restaurants and holiday feasts, regional rivalries and evocations of Dante. She went to Piedmont to learn Italian at a language school, and she recounts her struggles when the limitation of her language skills led to challenges in her understanding the conversations she had with the cooks, bakers, and butchers but as her skill improved her stories have more depth and interest. It really stuck with her, because she is now a professor in Italian language study at Dartmouth, and some of the stories towards the end of her book are about trying to take the cuisine of Italy home to New England. I especially appreciated her story of harvesting hops shoots and how perplexing it was for the farms caretaker to understand what she was about. There is a hazard that you're likely to want to make your own trip to Italy, and luckily I had that in hand before I started the book.

[RivkaBelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was exactly what I'm looking for when I pick up "foodie memoirs" - the food is there, in the center of the narrative, just as it is in the center of the table. This is family cooking, discovering food and the connections it creates - the memories and bonds. It's Italian country cooking, it's learning how to speak a language - and finding yourself gathered at the table sharing. Immensely readable; contributing to major wanderlust; and includes recipes (some of which I copied, to try in my own kitchen). Perfetto.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew this book included recipes and it did indeed follow a well-known format of having each chapter finish up with a recipe but too much writing about how the recipe was made went into a lot of chapters. Loved when the author wrote about her interactions with her family and friends and wished there had been more of that. But she sure made me want to be in Italy right now!

[Theresa Ratti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted more recipes, there are very few for each area and the recipes are not always easily reproducible.

[Joel Kline · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit long winded; would suggest stronger editing and cut the text by a third. Good-sounding recipes.