Mario Batali Holiday Food : Family Recipes for the Most Festive Time of the Year

Rating:
Summary: Authentic Recipes..with great photography
Review: As a Sicilian growing up with a large Italian family in Brooklyn, this book had many traditional recipes. As the older generations are gone..so are their recipes..this book brought them back to me. Christmas Eve - the traditional Fish Feast was fabulous in this book. The photography and layout is very good. I also enjoyed the brief history he includes with the holiday and food. I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of this book.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of great recipes
Review: I enjoy Mario Batali's quality work, both his interesting/funny TV shows and his interesting/beautiful books (the photographs are beautiful). Often when you buy quality Italian cookbooks with traditional recipes you get the feeling that it's been produced for professional chefs only. The recipes are too advanced and time consuming, and often require access to an Italian food market in order to get all ingredients. The recipes in this book range from uncomplicated to advanced but is "possible" for regular hobby chefs. Most of the ingredients are available at regular grocery stores. However, this doesn't mean that the food and all the dishes are too basic or uncomplicated; it's just that they are "within" reach for us regular guys. I'm sure that both hobby- and more advanced chefs also can appreciate and learn a lot from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and traditional
Review: I love this book. The recipes are traditional and delicious, the photographs are lovely, and I like the comments Mario includes with the recipes. I get hungry just looking through it.

Rating:
Summary: Surprising Book
Review: preordered this book when I saw it listed, knowing anything Mario had published would have to be great. I was however a little surprised when it arrived and I saw just how small it actually was. After reading it through from cover to cover, I overcame my disappointment however, realizing that Mario had chosen only the best recipes for the holidays. As the Italian food host at BellaOnline, I am always on the lookout for Italian cookbooks that offer more than simply everyday recipes. Anyone buying this cookbook that is familiar with Mario Batali's work, will not be sorry. If you are interested in Italian recipes specific for the holidays, buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: Classic Mario, just not enough to meet expectations
Review: The very best thing about this book is that it is more of Mario Batali cooking Italian food. Once that is said, there are some things which are disappointing about this book.

First, the book only covers Christmas and New Year. I would hardly expect Molto Mario to cover Thanksgiving, but what about Easter? There are also the hundreds of festivals in both Italy and the United States where food is a major element of the festivities. The whole point of 'carnevale' is food, as the meaning of the word is 'a farewell to meat'.

Second, the book only covers Campania. What about the other 21 provinces of Italy? The best part of this selection is that it is the region from which the Italian food most familiar to America comes. I think Mario would have been much better to name the book 'Holiday Food of Campania'. Joe Bastianich contributes some notes on the wines of Campania, reinforcing the impression that the book covers a limited range.

Third, the book is two-thirds the price for less than half the book you can find in Mario's first and third books.

If you are really interested in Italian Festival Food, check out the book of that name by Anne Bianchi published by Macmillan. It even includes a blurb from Mr. Molto himself on the dust jacket and I got it at a deep discount. Highly recommended.

All is not lost. This is still, after all, a cookbook by Mario. It's best feature is to give us recipes in order that we may do a Christmas Eve feast of the seven or ten or thirteen fishes (take your pick). It strikes me that this is another example where Italian food traditions depart broadly from the more formalized doctrines of France or Japan. While Richard Olney, our most analytical writer on French cuisine, dispairs of writing on improvisation in cooking, the Italians seem to revel in it. Like the Japanese, the Italians seem to really enjoy small portions of a lot of different dishes, at least at holiday meals. Mario warns us that because of this, portion sizes may be tricky.

The photographs of the food are much more colorful and more plentiful in this book than they are in Mario's first. They add some value to this rather slim offering. The list of sources at the back of the book is very good for a resident of New York City. I am especially happy to see DiPalo's cheese shop included.

If, like me, you are a Mario fan, you must have this book. This is especially true if you live vicariously through books and enjoy writers' tales of their holidays. If you are really looking for something with more meat on it's bones, check out the volume by Ms. Bianchi.