Winner Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Award
Winner Cordon dOr AwardBest Culinary Literature Book
Winner Gourmand World Cookbook Award Best Italian Cuisine Book
Published by Overlook Press, 2008, hardcover, illustrated, index, 434 pages, condition; as new.
A volume of more than two hundred authentic recipes celebrates Tuscany's slow-food cooking traditions, tracing the author's relocation to Italy to become an organic farmer and wild-game chef, an endeavor that took her throughout Italy in search of rare and regional flavors.
"Slowly, slowly, full" is how the lovely Italian phrase piano, piano, pieno translates, and it describes to perfection the experience of this multiple award-winning cookbook, dedicated to a style of cooking that involves fresh, organic, local ingredients, cooked classically, lovingly, with attention and care.
More than a decade ago, Susan McKenna Grant left Canada with her husband Michael to become an organic farmer and agriturismo owner in Italy. Gradually they brought their ancient, 165-acre piece of Tuscany, La Petraia, back to its profound and lush glory. Providing them with everything from wheat to grapes to olives, and wild boar, hens, rabbits, and deer, La Petraia is a self-sustaining kingdom and a cooks dream domain in the Chianti Classico zone in the heart of Tuscany. With these and many more exquisite ingredients at hand, she presents a repertoire of both classic and modern interpretations of northern Italian cuisine.
Traveling extensively throughout Italy to gather traditional and rare recipes, Grant has uncovered such delicious gems as Seuppa a la Valpelleunentze (cheese soup from the Val `dAosta), Pappardelle Mare e Monte (Pasta of the Sea and Mountain), and Cinghiale in Dolce e Forte (Sweet and Strong Wild Boar). These dishes, and more than 200 others, accompanied by evocative narratives of farm life and gorgeous color photographs of the food and the region, take the reader deep into the secret rural places of Italy. Piano, Piano, Pieno also offers informative, in-depth chapters on Italian breads and desserts, providing a exciting array of recipes for these staples and treats. Unusual in its scope and depth, Piano, Piano, Pieno is an indispensable addition to any serious cooks library.
"Piano, Piano, Pieno is a hymn to the joy of pure, Italian cooking, by a woman who has lovingly nurtured an ancient Tuscan farm into an abundant renaissance. Susan McKenna Grants recipes, for such delights as pappa al pomodoro, ciabatta, or bigoi in salsa, are clearly presented, and sing of the magical simplicity of Italian country cooking. She writes with gusto of the rich history, in some cases almost forgotten, of the foods and traditions of her adopted Italian home. Bravissima!"
This work honors the slow food movement, begun in Italy, that promotes a style of cooking that features fresh, local ingredients cooked with attention and care. The 200 recipes collected here celebrate the pleasures of slow food.
