Author: Matthew Fort

ISBN: 1-933572-02-7

 Matthew Fort’s Eating Up Italy is an intriguing culinary travelogue of the rich tastes, sights, and smells of food-loving Italy. Whizzing through on a Vespa scooter, Fort recounts his journey through the country and its culinary highlights – the markets, trattorias, and family homes, the people he meets, and of course the food, from the origins of the ingredients to the recipes he includes at the end of each chapter.

 The book’s real strength is authenticity. The foods, recipes, and experiences that Fort describes are all true-to-their-roots, authentic and real, showcasing the Italian love affair with food with no overdone romanticism or tourist clichés. This, however, is also the reason that most readers will probably not turn to this book as an everyday source for dinner recipes. Though interesting to flip through, dishes such as Grilled Pig Liver and Sauce of Castrated Ram are probably a bit too authentic for the typical North American table. There is, however, a good number of more usable recipes – Farro Salad, Fried Meatballs, and Green Olive-Stuffed Peppers, to name a few.

 Fort’s writing is engaging and informative; however, I see the book as being better suited to a male audience – those with a strong interest in authentic cuisine and travel writing, but wanting to avoid the sugary romanticism of many other books in this category. Personally, I found it to be a bit on the dry side and thought it could benefit from a bit of descriptive prettiness. Perhaps this is also partly due to the plain, mainly all-text design, while the content begs for some photographs of the luscious food and beautiful scenery.

 Eating Up Italy is not really light, relaxing culinary/travel reading – Fort packs a lot of detailed, in-depth information about the country and its food. However, if gaining new, no-frills knowledge and discovering the authentic Italian food culture is what you are looking for, then look no further - Eating Up Italy is your guide.

The above review was contributed by Kate Andronov, Communications Student.