Most cookbooks are a mere collection of recipes, purely functional and not particularly interesting.

Every once in a while however a cook book comes out which is far more than this… It tells a story, recounts the history of a nation, evokes emotions, sights, smells and tastes and inspires you to recreate the dishes not only for their flavour but for their historical sense and emotional significance too.

One such book is Made in Italy.

This book came out quite some time ago, and I was forced to leave it in Scotland when I first moved to Italy. After all, I only had 20kg to move my enitre life across the continent, and the book must weigh 5kg all by itself!

So it was that the book was left behind, but never forgotten. And now I have it back (thanks Mum and Dad!) and am rereading it from scratch. I also intend on playing with some of the recipes and will probably refer to them more than once in the coming weeks…

Now excuse me, I must get back to my food porn.

With love, from Italy