Product Description

Umberto Menghi's four previous cookbooks have sold over half a million copies worldwide. He considers Toscana Mia the truest reflection of his passion and art: a celebration of the well-lived life, Tuscan style. Toscana Mia is the next-best thing to visiting Villa Delia, Umberto's enchanting inn and cooking school in a refurbished sixteenth-century Tuscan farmhouse. In cooking classes, he shares more than just recipes: he wants his guests to know the personality of each ingredient and develop a feel for quantities and combinations. They learn that in Tuscany, food, family, love, lore and belonging are all one. After ten days, these visitors take a whole new set of instincts back to their kitchens.

Toscana Mia features the dishes Umberto watched his mother and grandmother prepare in the farmhouse kitchen, or ate at village banquets on celebration days. He has gathered over a hundred authentic recipes from family, friends and culinary associates around the region, and has put them in context, historically, geographically and culturally. Interspersed throughout are loving commentaries on the major ingredients, including history, basic cooking instructions and buying and growing advice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #983131 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Amazon.ca
The subtitle of Umberto Menghi's fifth cookbook hints that he's in search of more than just food this time out. The successful Vancouver restaurateur returns to his roots for inspiration--specifically to Villa Delia, his family's Tuscan inn and cooking school a little southeast of Pisa. The result is that almost all Menghi's recipes in this collection are purely regional, with few influences even from other Italian culinary traditions. When these outside influences crop up, as in Risotto with Lamb Sausage and Peppers, the ways in which Tuscans change them are carefully noted: "... we give it our own twist by adding more volume to the ingredients.... The rice becomes the starch that accompanies the main flavours. It also replaces bread, and not many things replace the bread on a Tuscan table." Menghi combines recipe leads and little photo-and-print essays about destinations (Elba and the facing coast, for example), foodstuffs (mushrooms, beans, pot-herbs), and food lore (the hunt, Christmas Eve dinner) in a compelling and heartfelt hymn of praise and thanksgiving to homeland and deep tradition.

The recipes are clear and unfussy; most ingredients are readily available in Canadian supermarkets. The meat preps are limited to a few stews, roasts, and grills that require just a few veggies, herbs, and, where appropriate, stock, wine, or vinegar. Try twice-cooked Turkey Breast Cutlets with Parmesan Cheese (the cutlets are first sautéed, then finished in the oven), or the plate-licking Sausages with Lentils. Either of these main courses, combined with one of Menghi's 10 salads (he presents two or three for each season) and an elementary dessert, say Almond Biscotti or Figs in Syrup, makes a modestly celebratory dinner. Wine suggestions include varietals, producers' names, and tasting notes. Menghi offers a useful hint concerning the SuperTuscans, Chianti blends containing no white gapes: these may not yet bear the Chianti denomination and so must "still receive the humble designation vino da tavola, table wine. Pay no attention; they're some of the best wines coming out of Italy today." Good to know about, better to taste. --Ted Whittaker

From Booklist
Lying south and east of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany offers a hearty, meaty cuisine currently popular because of the host of American tourists who crowd the region and the number of recent best-sellers about life in the small farms and villages that dot the hilly Tuscan landscape. Vancouver chef Umberto Menghi grew up in Tuscany, and he recalls in Toscana Mia the rich produce of land and sea that makes Tuscan cooking unique in Italy. Like most Mediterranean cuisines, Tuscan cooking depends on fresh local ingredients such as good olive oil, flavorful vegetables, and the best meats and seafood. Game plays a big part in Menghi's cooking, with hare, boar, and venison all putting in an appearance. Other meats star in a hearty Bollito Misto, a melange of boiled sausage, chicken, beef shank, and tongue that makes a great Sunday family feast. Mark Knoblauch
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From the Publisher
Authentic Tuscan recipes and a hymn of praise to the Tuscan lifestyle delivered with grace, simplicity and flavour by acclaimed chef, restaurateur and teacher Umberto Menghi.