In Nonna’s Kitchen: Recipes and Traditions from Italy’s Grandmothers
by Carol Field
In Italy, the Nonna is vanishing. These grandmothers have lived through hard times and devoted their lives to feeding their husbands and children. When they are gone, valuable links with the past will vanish with them unless their children or grandchildren take time to learn from them. Only then will someone continue to know where to find wild greens, how dough looks when it is just right, and how to prepare the dishes these inexhaustible women have made for decades. In Nonna’s Kitchen is Carol Field’s recording of the lives of some of these women and the food they cook. Whether they live in the countryside, in a small town, or in a big city, their dishes are specialties found only at home, where everything is made from scratch and it does not matter if a favorite recipe takes hours or days to make. As the title indicates, these women’s stories are as important as their food. Putting the two together, Field captures both the essence of the Italian spirit and the soul of Italian cooking.