The Italian Baker
by Carol Field
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carol FieldEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1985-10-30
ISBN: 0061812668
Number of pages: 443
Publisher: Harper & Row
Book Reviews of The Italian Baker
Book Review: Poor Supplement for Artisan Bakers
Summary: 3 Stars
Americans have fallen in love with traditional European breads. I purchased this book seeking to broaden my knowledge with good formulas for authentic regional specialty breads that I expected would make generous use of baker's pre-ferments, in addition to a heavy reliance on naturally leavened indirect methods. Of the meager 17 traditional bread recipes contained in this title, none fit my search parameters.
I should have noted the copyright date is 1985. This was during a previous bread making revival in the U.S. when most bakers, including myself, were blithely content to subject the process to short cuts, compromises, and direct method bread baking. Recipes at that time reflecting America's taste preferences, frequently used gobs of cheese, peppers, onions, oils, eggs, herbs, condiments and commercial packaged yeasts. This title is somewhat a reflection of that era when bakers unfamiliar with long fermentation processes relied on packaged yeast as their prevailing leavening agent and used condiments to compensate for the bread's lack of integrity.
The Italian Baker reflects many of our former preferences with newly added concessions for the busy homemaker who will enjoy Field's food processor directions to further speed up the bread-making process, and at the same time diminish the quality of the end product.
Today, when I read a recipe such as one in The Italian Baker that calls for nutmeg and two packages of frozen spinach, sugar, olive oil and packaged yeast, I cringe. Alternatively, as with a rye bread recipe in The Italian Baker that calls for 7 ounces of pancetta cubes, a quarter-cup olive oil, commercial yeast and is out of the oven within 3 hours. It is difficult to ponder which is more objectionable today. the pancetta hunks and olive oil in a direct method rye bread, or substituting bacon chunks for unavailable pancetta.
To make consistently good bread, one must accurately scale all ingredients and maintain ideal dough temperature at every step of the process. The recipes in The Italian Baker combine Imperial volume-measurements for all liquids, and offer both Imperial volume measurements AND metric weight for (some) dry ingredients. Other dry ingredients retain Imperial volume measurements. The result is a hodge podge of inconsistent weight/volume and metric/Imperial measurements that causes needless confusion, and is sure to provoke bakers who now depend on weight measurements for accuracy.
Perhaps the most useful volume in my kitchen reference library is a professional text, The Taste of Bread, by Prof. Raymond Calvel, translated from the French by Ronald Wirtz and James MacGuire. - - - Another suggestion is, The Village Baker: Classic Regional Breads from Europe and America by Joe Ortiz. Ortiz's admirable dedication to thoroughness and accuracy will please those who aspire towards consistency and great tasting breads. - - - Daniel Wing and Alan Scott's The Bread Builders, published by Chelsea Green - This latter book's slant is toward building wood-fired masonry ovens and naturally leavened breads, and includes well-researched information on flour, fermentation, and dough. The later used simple chemistry and a bell curve to explain to me why it is unnecessary to waste humongous amounts of flour to maintain an active superbly balanced levain such as instructed by others (Reinhardt, Silverton). I now begin with only 25 grams of starter, and double it in each build until it reaches approximately 400 grams of levain that is roaring to sponsor about three and a half pounds of dough.
Summary of The Italian Baker
Bread in Italy is rough country loaves with thick chewy crusts and flat disks of focaccia seasoned with the wild herbs of the fields. It is celebratory sweet holiday breads dense with fat raisins, toasted nuts and candied fruit peels. It is "new wave" wave" breads, recently invented by artisan bakers and studded with roasted peppers, sun. dried tomatoes and salty olive paste. It is imaginative multi-grain breads and rolls with tastes and shapes that vary dramatically from region to region.
Recipes for the breads of all these regions, for the comforting rustic soups and salads and appetizers based on them, for breadsticks and rolls, pizza and focaccia, for holiday specialties, for pastries, cookies, cornetti and nut tortes, fruit tarts, cheesecakes and spice cakes and other confections-all are offered in this landmark volume which presents, for the first time in English or Italian, the diverse baking traditions of Italy.
Knowing these regional specialties and the stories behind them is like taking a trip through the Italian countryside. Putting the recipes on paper as Carol Field has done is like preserving the villages in the Italian hillsides with their churches and frescoes, for they are part of a tradition that has never before been recorded. In preparing for this book, Carol Field spent two years working with the bakers of Italy, traversing the country again and again from Lugano and Como in the north to Lecce and Palermo in the south, tasting and testing, then going back to the States to rework the recipes in an American kitchen with American ingredients. The result is recipes that are impeccably written for utmost ease and flexibility. Some are simple and earthy, some elegant and refined, but all will be a revelation to Americans who have previously known Italian breads and desserts only from the limited and stereotyped range available until now. Each recipe offers instructions for making doughs by hand, by electric mixer, and by food processor. Illustrations provide clear step-by-step how-to, and chapters on ingredients, equipment and technique reveal all the whys and wherefores.
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