Cuisine Cookbook

10 Authentic Classic Italian Cookbooks & Recipe Books

Italian food is known as the most popular cuisine around the world. Besides pizza and pasta, people love original dishes that trace back to the past. For everyone who desires them, the good news is that you could make your Italian meal by referring to some guides, and this post will list out 10 cookbooks about classic Italian foods. Want to see the best Italian cookbooks overall? Go to that post instead.

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking: A Cookbook

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“This is one of my favorite Italian cookbooks. Old school perfection.” – Jennifer Guerrero

Finding the most basic handbook about Italian culinary, Essential of Italian Cooking is precisely that. It is valued to be the most important consulted and enjoyed Italian cookbook over time. Marcella Hazan is the woman who has brought a whole new world of Italian food to Americans.

Essentials of Italian Cooking is a pillow book for anyone looking to master the art of Italian Cooking. With the update and expansion of 50 new recipes, the reader finds the book as a primarymanual for all cook levelsfrom beginners to professionals. It provides both an accessibleand comprehensive guide to methods, ingredients, and a collection of the most delicious recipes from the Italian cusine.

Readers always find out the information they need to know about the taste and texture of a dish and how to achieve it in this book.Many home cooks who have used Marcella’s classic books for years share that no other manual could be more passionate and inspiring about authentic Italian food.

Marcella Hazan was born in a fishing village on Italy’s foremost gastronomic region. She ever received doctorates from the University of Ferrara in natural sciences and biology. After that, Marcella lived and traveled throughout Italy.

With the publishing of The Classic Italian Cook Book and a single volume, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (sum up from More Classic Italian Cooking), she gained a reputation as a leading Italian cooking teacher all over America. Hazan died in 2013.

The Classic Italian Cookbook: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating 

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“This is one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. Buy it now. Start a mass protest movement until they reprint it!” – Justin Elder

Showing in its name, the Classic Italian Cookbook describes the aesthetic way of Italian Cooking and also the art of tasting. It shares the method to make pasta and provides regional and traditional recipes for vegetables, salads, desserts, and fruits.

Its comprehensive writing style showing accessible elements helps all the cooks could apply and made their authentic Italian meal no matter where they are. 

Marcella Hazan, the godmother of Italian Cooking in America, is the author of The Classic Italian Cookbook, More Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella’s Italian Kitchen, and Essentials of Italian Cooking. She lives in Venice then moves to Longboat Key, Florida.

The Silver Spoon Classic

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“Exquisite – so good, I bought two copies!! Actually, one was for a good friend. I would recommend this just to read and look at even if you don’t like Cooking!!” – Donna Bevan

The Silver Spoon is dubbed as a deluxe collection of the best recipes from the world’s leading Italian cookbook. The first version was published in 1950 and is the last compilation of traditional home-cooking Italian dishes. The Silver Spoon Classic consists of 170 top-notch recipes from Italy’s varied regions.

The content is carefully filtered from Phaidon’s Silver Spoon cookbooks, which have sold over one million copies worldwide. This new collection contains elegant photography of the dishes that we bet anyone receives the book as a gift is delighted. With recipes for all tastes and seasons, The Silver Spoon Classic is a reliable guide to preparing the most authentic and delicious Italian cuisine.

The Silver Spoon Kitchen is a collection of long-established recipes collected throughout the country and includes every regional specialty. Cooking and food are two of the most elegant expressions of Italian culture, so the Italian cooking skills are handed down from one generation to the next.

La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy

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“The most recent addition to my library of Italian cookbooks is a true, complete, and helpful compendium of basic and not-so-basic Italian recipes.” – Beppe Primo

Fifty years ago, a team of Italian scholars gathered to discuss how to preserve traditional Italian cooking. As a result, they grouped and formed the Italian Academy of Cuisine to record classic recipes from every region. The members interviewed grandmothers and farmers right at their stoves and transcribed their recipes with wide spread to even the most remote village.

Some of them had never been documented before. The result of this attempt is astounding 2,000 recipes that represent Italian country cooking. Each recipe is labeled with its region of origin, the ingredients, and the techniques that change with geography. 

With unlimited achievable recipes and such simple dishes as Polenta with Tomato Sauce and Chicken with Lemon and Capers, La Cucina is a vital reference for every cook’s library.

The Italian Academy of Cuisine was founded in 1953 in Milan to preserve the gastronomical heritage of Italy. Every year it is the host of enormous education programs and awards prizes to leaders in gastronomy. Besides that, they also release a monthly magazine and restaurant guide.

The 5-Ingredient Italian Cookbook: 101 Regional Classics Made Simple

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“This is a fantastic cookbook for all things Italian. I love the fact that it states how long it takes to prepare each one, how many portions, cook time and temperature.”- Serenity

As you might know, real Italian cuisine is all about simplicity. Using just a few fresh and simple ingredients, the 5-Ingredient Italian Cookbook brings you the authentic taste of Italy with recipes that prove less is always more. From Chicken Marsala to Pasta Carbonara to Tiramisu, this cookbook highlights regional classics that you can cook at any time. With no more than 5-ingredients and almost 30 minutes preparation, this Italian cookbook makes every meal a celebration of taste.

All principles of authentic Italian cuisine from pantry essentials, equipment to core techniques are clearly outlined in the book. It seems that you could taste a new flavor a day with 101 simple recipes in the 5-Ingredient Italian Cookbook.

Francesca Montillo was born and worked as a culinary instructor and culinary tour leader in Italy. She currently lives and travels between Boston and her native country. While in Italy, Francesca shows the country’s regional cuisines to curious and hungry students and travelers. She also is the creator of Lazy Italian Culinary Adventures (TheLazyItalian.com), where she reports her travel and food experiences.

Food of the Italian South: Recipes for Classic, Disappearing, and Lost Dishes: A Cookbook

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This cookbook is a must for anyone who loves Italian cuisine but wants to learn more about the stories behind it. – Jason

Great cookbooks show us how to make beautiful dishes, but the very best share something more. The food of the Italian South is precisely that. Through 85 authentic recipes and 100 impressive photographs, the book describes the cultural and cooking traditions of the Italian South, from the mountains to the coast.

In most cultures, exploring food means exploring history, and the Italian South has plenty of both to offer. Stories of how dishes came to be are told, and the taste of stories enriches both the act of reading and eating.  Parla shares both original and reimagined recipes along with historical and cultural that sum up in those are the miles of beaches, sheep-dotted mountains, quiet towns, and each unique precious specialty.  

Katie Parla is a New Jersey native, but she works as a Rome-based food and beverage journalist, culinary guide, and educator. She is the author of KatieParla.com, which receive the Saveur Award-winning food and travel site. More than that, she also composes the ebook Eating & Drinking in Rome and more than twenty travel guides.

Her co-author Tasting Rome (2016), won the IACP Award for the best international cookbook. Many Katie’s travel writing, recipes, and food criticism are chosen to post in the New York Times, Food & Wine, Saveur, Australian Gourmet Traveller, the Guardian, Condé Nast Traveler, Punch, Eater, and so on. Explore more about her on Instagram and Twitter @katieparla.

Carmine’s Family-Style Cookbook: More Than 100 Classic Italian Dishes to Make at Home

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If you love classic Italian dishes and you’re not looking for fuss, try this recipe book. You’ll like it. – Pamela J Gerber

Carmine’s flagship Times Square restaurant is famous for the best of classic Italian cuisine. Each dish is prepared simply to bring out the most dynamic flavor and make anyone who tastes it reach for seconds. Bringing it into text, Carmine’s Family-Style Cookbook reveals the simple hidden of Carmine’s longtime success in hearty, rich Italian food that people can whip up anytime.

With this cookbook instructions, Americans could easily create the Italian taste and enjoy at home from appetizers, pasta, meat, and main poultry courses to desserts. Try any recipes in Carmine’s Family-Style Cookbook and bring home that classic Italian flavor to your family.

Michael Ronis and Mary Goodbody are co-authors of this cookbook. While Michael Ronis is a chef at Carmine’s Legendary Family Style Italian Restaurant and the executive chef of its parent company, the Alicart Restaurant Group, Mary Goodbody is a multiple James Beard Award winner for this edition.

The North End Italian Cookbook, 6th: The Bestselling Classic Featuring Even More Authentic Family Recipes

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“The North End Italian Cookbook was highly recommended to me by a friend who happens to be Italian!!! She has an ancient edition! I ordered one for me and one for my daughter! Great recipes and the majority of ingredients are easily purchased in any local grocery store.” – Cheryl Z

When you think of Boston’s North End, you will see a place full of great food. Italian markets filled with strings of thick sausage, great wheels of cheese, seafood, dark chocolate, and fresh fruits line the streets. From the old to the young, the cooks of this Italian-American neighborhood have turned these beautiful ingredients into unforgettable meals.

For more than 30 years, Marguerite DiMino Buonopane, one of the North End’s most famous cooks, has published her secrets to creating this culinary tips in your kitchen. Now she collects more than 275 of her tasty recipes attached with mouth-watering color photos. The result is a full-color, deluxe edition of a treasured cookbook classic welcomed by many readers.

Marguerite DiMino Buonopane is the host of the legendary luncheons and former restaurant chef-owner at the old North End Union, a nonprofit community settlement house. While writing her book, she also taught cooking classes in Boston’s North End, where she has lived most of her life.

Autentico: Cooking Italian, the Authentic Way

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“A deep dive into authentic Italian cooking by an Italian food expert.” – Monique – Hardcover Cook

Autentico is a way leading to the pure flavors of Italy. Unlike many Italian cookbooks, Autentico goes far beyond pasta. In a world of misleading labeling and vast production of seemingly “authentic” cooking rule, Rolando Beramendi has crafted and kept centuries-old culinary traditions alive. That’s authentic!

In this book, Rolando gives the details about how to make classic dishes from Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe to Risotto in Bianco, and Gran Bollito Misto meant to be but not the modified versions across the world. Among the 120 recipes, you’ll find classic Italian dishes as Baked Zucchini Blossoms filled with sheep’s milk ricotta that derived from the times of Marco Polo. Along with selective ingredients from the shores of Italy and beyond, each page offers a strong historic taste of Italy right in the modern kitchen.

Rolando Beramendi is the founder of the Italian fine food importer Manicaretti and a frequent winner of Specialty Food Show awards. He is genuinely a “chef’s chef” since his culinary expertise, and cooking classes have been praised by celebrities such as Ina Garten, Alice Waters, Mario Batali, and many more. He both spends his time between New York, San Francisco, and his home in Florence. Autentico is Rolando’s first cookbook.

The Godfather: The Corleone Family Cookbook

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“Excellent cookbook! We are foodies and are of Italian ancestry.” – Stephen P

The Godfather trilogy is recognized as one of the most excellent movie series of all the time. It tells about the classic story of the Italian immigrant family determined to preserve their long-life traditions from fading in the new world. 

Combining 75 recipes with stunning images and quotes from the films, this cookbook is absolutely a must-have for all fans of The Godfather, especially those with a taste for the more delicate foods in life.

Liliana Battle is a talented travel and food writer. She is influenced a lot when living in Calabria, Italy, where her family comes. Her three cookbooks are Easy Home Cooking Italian Style, Food for Sharing Italian Style, and The Sweet Life: Home Baking and Sweet Treats Italian Style.

We hope you like this post and finally find out your favorite Classic Italian cookbooks. Meanwhile, we welcome you to explore our site and discover more cookbook recommendations from the same cuisine below.

Doris Frasier

Hi. I'm Doris! I am a foodie that has traveled to 78 countries and loves trying cuisines from different countries. I try anything related to food and share my opinions on this blog. Send me a message with any requests!
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