What are the must-have Italian cookbooks?
Hannah, Newcastle
“This is quite easy, actually,” says the Guardian’s Italian food correspondent, Rachel Roddy. “Everyone will say The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, mainly because it is just that – essential.” Roddy got herself a copy when she first arrived in Italy: “It’s foundation cooking, but very satisfying whatever level you meet it at.” That’s because Hazan covers everything, from techniques that build flavour “up from the bottom” (eg, soffritto) to essential ingredients, before taking an extensive romp through the country via, among others, appetisers, pasta, fish, meats and vegetable soups, which, Hazan writes, can “tell you where you are in Italy almost as precisely as a map”. As Ruth Rogers, chef-owner of The River Cafe in west London, puts it: “When I don’t know what to do in life, I go to Marcella and she sorts me out.”
