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penwiper's review against another edition
3.0
A very thorough book with some interesting recipes and pretty photos. The intros to the recipes were fun to read and you could see the chef took her business seriously!
My main issues with the book was a)the recipes all seemed very large and would need to be paired down and b) the recipes repeated themselves a lot, sometimes with only very minor changes— ie, a beet gnocchi recipe might show up in a different location of Italy with the only change being basically either the sauce or the fact that ricotta was added to lighten it up. C) also, while organizing by region added some interest initially, I think it confused the general ability to sort through the recipes without relying heavily on an index of some kind.
Other than that, fun cookbook to look through!
My main issues with the book was a)the recipes all seemed very large and would need to be paired down and b) the recipes repeated themselves a lot, sometimes with only very minor changes— ie, a beet gnocchi recipe might show up in a different location of Italy with the only change being basically either the sauce or the fact that ricotta was added to lighten it up. C) also, while organizing by region added some interest initially, I think it confused the general ability to sort through the recipes without relying heavily on an index of some kind.
Other than that, fun cookbook to look through!
danperlman's review
5.0
What an amazing collection of recipes, each presented with a bit of history and culture. Hand shaped pastas that you may never have heard of, I certainly found quite a few new ones for my repertoire.
I love the way it's divided up into regions, and explores the different unusual (and some more well known) hand formed pastas, comparing and contrasting them. Too, I like that the author gives notes about both traditional sauces to accompany each, as well as alternates. The selection of sauces, recipes given at the end of the book, is somewhat limited and repetitive, and it might have been interesting if she'd given more generic thoughts about what sort of sauces one might consider - at the same time, anyone delving into a book this intricate is likely to be able to look at the suggestions and come up with their own alternatives with minimal effort.
Now to start in on actually trying them!
I love the way it's divided up into regions, and explores the different unusual (and some more well known) hand formed pastas, comparing and contrasting them. Too, I like that the author gives notes about both traditional sauces to accompany each, as well as alternates. The selection of sauces, recipes given at the end of the book, is somewhat limited and repetitive, and it might have been interesting if she'd given more generic thoughts about what sort of sauces one might consider - at the same time, anyone delving into a book this intricate is likely to be able to look at the suggestions and come up with their own alternatives with minimal effort.
Now to start in on actually trying them!
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