Flavors of the Riviera

Olives, gnocchi and ravioli, chestnuts and cheese, tender tripe and mortar-made pesto served with lasagna so thin it's called "silk handkerchiefs" - the traditional fare of the Riviera is not haute cuisine, but a unique juxtaposition of delicate and hearty flavors born of the ingenuity of the region's people and their unabashed love of food. In this splendid book, Colman Andrews offers a compendium of recipes that capture the true essence of this region's cuisine, as well as a gastronomic journey that takes you from the street vendors of Nice and food shops of Genoa to farmhouse kitchens and elegant restaurants.
Colman Andrews adds an accompanying chapter on wines, an appendix of favorite restaurants, and an array of fascinating facts and personal anecdotes on the foods, the topography, and the people of the region.

The executive editor of Saveur magazine and author of Catalan Cuisine leads a lively and informative tour of the fabled French and Italian coastline that is a treat for the armchair traveler as well as the cook. Punctuated with amusing essays and quotations and illustrated with eight pages of color photographs, the text and nearly 150 recipes give a compelling picture of this region's cuisine, which is, according to the author, often misunderstood. Despite the Riviera's reputation for opulence, many of its best dishes were born of native frugality and based on imaginative combinations of homey ingredients. Some recipes will be familiar?Ratatouille and Pissaladiere for example, but even old favorites have a twist (the French don't cook the vegetables in a real Salade Nicoise) and there are some light, unusual dishes such as Tagliatelle with Green Beans, Potatoes and Pesto and Fresh Cod with Anchovy Vinaigrette. Divided into sections which largely follow the terrain (e.g., "From the Farms and Gardens," "The Sea"), the book includes a detailed chapter on wines, a guide to some local restaurants, sources for hard-to-find ingredients and an extensive bibliography.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Despite the recent slew of Mediterranean cookbooks, Andrews explores territory that will be new to most readers. His Riviera does not refer to the "playground of the rich" but to a more rustic territory, including Italy's Ligurian coast and the coastal region surrounding Nice in France. Like the author's Catalan Cuisine (LJ 4/15/88), this is a history as much as a cookbook, with generous amounts of culinary anthropology and even linguistics thrown in. In examining traditional Nicoise and Ligurian cooking, Andrews dismisses the current notion of the Mediterranean diet, for these were cuisines born of poverty, not of plenty. Some of the dishes he presents will be familiar?certainly ratatouille and pesto are here?but many are rather more esoteric. An intriguing and thoroughly researched culinary journey, this is highly recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Andrews' uncompromising journalistic approach to the cooking of the Riviera transforms what might be just another Italian cookbook into a brilliant, consummately professional exposition of culinary history and practical gastronomy. Andrews narrowly defines the "Riviera," considering only that portion of the Mediterranean coast that commences in Nice in France and stretches eastward through Italy's Ligurian coast. Tiny though that region may be, its cooking has in the past few years become a standard for heart-healthy nutrition. Andrews cleverly debunks that modern myth with a little historical sleuthing, noting that the original pesto was made with lard, not olive oil, and that the fish of the Mediterranean have always been scarce, expensive, and not a significant part of natives' general diet. Andrews' straightforward approach to recipes makes them readily reproducible in the American kitchen, and he offers substitutes wherever practical. Pastas abound, but so do tourtes, Mediterranean pies as often savory as sweet. Most astonishing is the famous tourte de blettes, an exotic sweet pastry filled with Swiss chard. Very highly recommended for any international cookery collection. Mark Knoblauch