Words by Carla Passino
It may sound strange to have a great Italian recipe book written by a Croatian. But Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, TV chef, restaurateur and cookbook author extraordinaire, originally comes from Istria, a large peninsula in the northeast corner of the Adriatic Sea, which has historically been an ethnic melting pot with large Italian, Croatian and Slovene populations.
At the age of ten, Matticchio Bastianich left her native Istria, which was then under the rule of Communist Yugoslavia, and escaped to Italy before moving to the United States in 1958.
Coming from a family of passionate cooks, she started working in the New York restaurant industry and success soon found her.
Drawing on both her northern Italian and Slavic food culture, she opened a restaurant in Manhattan, Felidia, in 1981. By 1995, Felidia, had earned critical acclaim and as a firmly established star in the New York culinary firmament.
But Matticchio Bastianich didn’t rest on her laurels. She went on to open three more restaurants in New York, one in Pittsburgh and one in Kansas City; starred in four American TV series; founded a TV production company and a travel company specializing in Italian art history and gastronomy; bought vineyards in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Tuscany, which soon started producing award-winning wines; cooked for Pope Benedict XVI when he visited the United States; and found time to be a grandmother to five children.
As if this weren’t enough, in 1990 she embarked on a new career as a cookbook author by publishing La Cucina di Lidia, which capitalized on all her experience. Five more titles followed, with the latest one, Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy, published last October (November in the UK).
The book is a mouthwatering, beautifully illustrated cavalcade through the country’s regional cuisines. But just like Matticchio Bastianich is an Italian with a difference, so is her recipe collection, where she reveals the unsung heroes of Italian gastronomy. What makes it special is that the author unearths some really interesting dishes, which are genuinely Italian but go far beyond the trite confines of lasagne, pizza and meatballs.
You will find not a whiff of Tuscany in Matticchio Bastianich’s pages (though she did share some excellent Maremma recipes in a previous book, Lidia’s Italy). Instead, she starts off by exploring the little known cuisine of Trentino Alto Adige, where Italian and German flavours mingle in unexpected dishes such as apple and bean soup or beef braised in beer.
Her journey, which is spiced up by descriptions of her trips to Italy, details of good producers and notes on the meals she enjoyed there, then takes readers through many other gastronomic surprises - from tiny cavatelli served simply with fava beans (a Molise classic) to figs stuffed Calabria-style. Even when she touches on established regions like Emilia Romagna, she discovers many hidden culinary gems - such as tagliatelle with white meat sauce, which is an interesting, more flavoursome version of the rather obvious spaghetti Bolognese.
Out of the 175 recipes in the book, my personal favourites are Lombardy’s baked rice frittata (a crispy, delicious way to make use of risotto leftovers) and Sardinia’s malloreddus with sausage and tomato sauce, a rich, filling dish which is great for cold days (but bizarrely comes from a region that has more hot, sunny days than most other corners of Italy).
Both of these are authentic dishes, rooted deeply in the culture of their region of origin. But even when Matticchio Bastianich’s recipes entail a slight departure from tradition - as is the case with Valle d’Aosta’s roasted pepper and olive salad with fontina - they still feel quintessentially Italian, as could be concocted in any nonna’s kitchen.
Perhaps best of all, though, is that - unless you really feel the urge to make your pasta from scratch - the 175 dishes detailed in the book are all great options for everyday meals, allowing any home cook to add an unusual Italian twist to their dinner arsenal.
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich’s Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy is available both from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
