The Silver Spoon- the Ultimate Italian Cookbook

To call The Silver Spoon a cookbook is like calling the Taj Mahal a mausoleum. This is the penultimate cookbook; if you only ever buy one cookbook for your home, this should be the one. Comprised of over two thousand recipes, there is something in it for everyone.

To start, the book has a small blurb on its history, explaining what it is, and why it is so special. This book is the English translation of a book that has been famous in Italy since 1950. It was first published in English in 2005. After the historical information, the book has several important sections. The first is a small guide detailing the different sections. Following that is an extensive glossary to help new and old cooks alike. The last section before you actually get to the recipes is a few pages on cooking utensils and kitchen tools. It is scientifically and practically written, useful even for experienced cooks and invaluable for the novice.

The rest of this sizeable book is devoted to recipes. It is sorted very neatly into sections such as "sauces, marinades, flavored butters", "vegetables", "poultry", and "desserts - baking", which make it very easy to find what you're looking for. They maintain a similar organization within each section, keeping like foods on adjacent pages to save time. The recipes will often call for sauces or stocks, for which recipes are also included in this book, thus reducing your reliance on pre-made varieties.

The recipes themselves are, in a word, mouthwatering. This is truly traditional Italian cooking, rather than the Americanized versions which are available in many restaurants. As such, there is a much wider reliance on olive oil, even in the baked desserts, and a delightful variety of vegetable recipes. Vegetables and herbs feature very widely all through the book, often in combination with heavenly sauces and cheese, which make it a great resource for people looking to get more produce in their diet. It may also be easier to convince children to eat their veggies, when they are prepared so delightfully. My own children, five and three, dive right into the dishes we've tried from this book.