What I find interesting, and fascinating, about food and cooking is not just the recipe and its ingredients, but their history, their origins, how they are representative of a culture and how, in turn, they are represented in works of art.
The Piedmont region offers us some of Italy's, and the world's, best examples of certain products such as cheese, breadsticks, rice, filberts, chocolate, beef and wine and with simpler things, such as garlic, onions and cabbage, has created recipes touching the sublime.
This book aims to tell the story of the Piedmont's recipes and products and to pay homage to the sacrifices, the intelligence and the tenacity of the farmers, shepherds, cheesemarkers, bakers, dried anchovy peddlers, cooks and others who contributed to the development of this cusine and continue to do so.
The illustrations are all related in some way to the food and agricolture of the Piedmont. I discovered an unexpected wealth of subjects suited to this book, from landscape - plains, hills and mountains - to architecture, painting and frescoes, that merit, just as much as the cuisine, to be better known and enjoyed.

Sally Spector



TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Preliminary Note

Breadsticks

Bagna Caoda

Antipasti

Rice

Pasta

Soups

Veal & Meat

Truffles

Cheese

Chocolate & Sweets

Wine

Indexes

Bibliography