This is not a cookbook. This is something more: a travelogue, a patient investigation of Italy's cuisine, a loving profile of the everyday heroes who bring Italy to the table. Pasta, Pane, Vino is the latest edition of the genre–bending Roads & Kingdoms style pioneered under Anthony Bourdain's imprint in Rice, Noodle, Fish and Grape, Olive, Pig.
Town by town, bite by bite, author Matt Goulding brings Italy to life through intimate portraits of its food culture and the people pushing it in new directions: Three globe-trotting brothers who became the mozzarella kings of Puglia; the pizza police of Naples and the innovative pies that stay one step ahead of the rules; the Barolo Boys who turned the hilly Piedmont into one of the world's great wine regions.
From the pasta temples of Rome to the multicultural markets of Sicily to the family–run, fish–driven trattorias of Lake Como, Pasta, Pane, Vino captures the breathtaking diversity of Italian regional food culture.
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"Italy is a beautiful but complicated place, not so much a country as a collection of cultures and cuisines. Matt Goulding expertly navigates its wonders and eccentricities with wisdom and great passion."
— Anthony Bourdain
" Full review: 50 to 5000 charactersThis is my first look at Mr. Golding's work and I don't think I'd repeat the experiment. Book seemed to make a promising start at rome, then at Bologna it beggan to fizzle out. Too much space is devoted to a rambling talk on Mozrella including a boring biography of a family engaged in making that cheese. That part could have been cut by at least 75%. There is more about Sicialian politicians than on food and wine, and what is worse, a lot of uninteresting passages on migrants and their situation. In his foray into literary criticism, he has the termerity to call Prince Guiseppe di Lampedusa's masterpiece "Il Gatopardo" a 'great Sicilian novel.' This work is a masterpiece of world literature. The author states that Greeks were in the area since 2000 BC! His account of Sardinian cusine is a little better, but one would have liked to hear a bit more about actual food. His description of the lake region of Northern Italy is so diluted with platitudes, it leaves one not knowing whether to curse ofyawn. The two worst flaws in the book the author's laboured and highly unnecessary use of 'four letter' words, perhaps, to show that is 'modern.' His emphasis to making every thing or place worth in commercial terms is very unattractive. It is a pity that a splendid reader has been assigned to read such a book. "
— Tarquin, 7/4/2021Will Damron has won several Earphones Awards and been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He has had acting roles off-Broadway and on stage and screen throughout the country.