The art of Italian cuisine by Massimo Bottura

Uit The art of Italian cuisine:

Immature yolk: Italians like to use all parts of an animal, including the unripe yolks that are still on the ovary of a slaughtered chicken. They consist only of egg yolk, no protein, do not yet have a shell and are not fertilized.

Colatura di alici: The liquid obtained from anchovies that have been dried with entrails. The fish are lightly salted and pressed together in the barrel to squeeze out the moisture. After fermentation, it forms a liquid that is often used in Italian cooking.

Not an everyday cookbook

It should be clear, The art of Italian cuisine by Massimo Bottura is not an everyday cookbook. But from the world's best chef with his restaurant Osteria Francescana in Modena you certainly don't have to expect everyday recipes. His dishes are not there to fill the stomach, but to experience a taste sensation. A flashback to your childhood, as the cook writes, for example, when he is looking to optimize one particular taste.

It has been a while since this book came out, but given Bottura's recent election as the best chef in the world, we thought a review on DitIsItalie.nl was still in order. You also have a chance to win the book. You can read what you need to do for this at the bottom of this discussion.

The cook as an artist

In the cookbook, which is actually more of a table book to flip through, Bottura gives a photo of the dish and a story about the dish on every two pages.

A story to respond to a memory, a quest or an investigation that was part of the creation of the court. A digression on Goethe's trip to Italy, the account of a search for a Japanese ingredient, an explanation or explanation of his culinary choices. Here we see the cook at work as an artist. The dishes are served as miniature architectural works of art.

They are not dishes for the buona forchetta, the one who likes 'Burgundy dining'.

This cook is a scientist who uses chemistry techniques. In one of his most famous dishes, he serves Parmesan cheese in five stages: mousse, foam, stock, a wafer and demi-soufflé.

Snails that have eaten truffles and vine leaves

So don't expect that you can easily get started with this book yourself at home. If it's not because of the difficulty of the cooking process, it's the bizarre ingredient that you have to get your hands on. Snails that have eaten truffles and grape leaves, just to name one example. In the back of the book is a glossary and the recipes. The ingredients are sometimes indicated by their Latin names.

Traditional and modern

The special thing is that this top chef is on the one hand very traditionally Italian, with many classic ingredients and flavors from Italian cuisine, and on the other hand he interprets it in a whole new way. Tradition and modernity meet.

Despite all the fuss, a traditional nonna, who cooks her own vegetable soup according to her grandmother's recipe, I think like going out for dinner at Osteria Francescana. This is how he optimizes the traditional peasant dish of the poor man's kitchen pasta and beans (pasta and beans), but on the other hand he is not too bland to serve sakamaki rice to Italians, if in his opinion it is better than the classic risotto.

For the cook hungry for knowledge

This book is for the curious cook with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. For someone who marvels, amazes and is interested in taste sensations and complicated cooking techniques.

Are you such a person? Then we can warmly recommend The art of Italian cuisine.

The art of Italian cuisine
by: Massimo Bottura (translated by Ingrid Buthodgirard, Akkie de Jong, Henja Schneider, Toos IJdema)
306 pages
price: €49,50
Terra Lannoo, November 2014
ISBN: 9789089896155