Mario Batali—Big American Cookbook

September 19, 2016
Batali is best known for his New York City Italian eateries (Esca, Babbo, and Luca) and cookbooks (Molto Italiano, The Babbo Cookbook, etc.), as well as TV shows such as the foodie chat show The Chew, but he has been branching out lately, and his second book of American food (2014’s America: Farm to Table highlighted local providers) features a solid collection of some of the country’s iconic dishes. The premise is hardly a new one, and Batali offers plenty of expected regional fare: Manhattan clam chowder, crab cakes, biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, and so on. These are pitch-perfect in execution but bring little new to the discussion. The book takes off with the inclusion of quirky, must-try dishes such as black-walnut ice cream from Missouri; Country Captain Chicken from the Charleston, S.C./Savannah, Ga., region; quirky Midwestern fare such as loose meat sandwiches from Iowa, Cleveland’s pierogies, and Nebraska’s runzas (bread pockets stuffed with meat and cabbage); and Maryland’s Smith Island cake. Those culinary details, as well as
Batali’s essays on his two-year journey across the U.S. (which include further recommendations), set this volume apart from its peers. Though many of the dishes have been collected elsewhere (Batali’s She-Crab Soup and oysters Rockefeller, among others, do not deviate in the slightest from the classic preparations), Batali fans and collectors of Americana will appreciate this
reliable and well-curated compendium.

January 1, 2017

Celebrity chef Batali (America--Farm to Table) takes on regional American cooking in this weighty new cookbook, which collects the iconic dishes you'd expect to find in a roadside diner or treasured heirloom recipe box. Cowritten with Washington Post copy editor Webster, the book groups more than 250 classics (e.g., New England boiled dinner, Chicago deep-dish pizza, fried dill pickles, gooey butter cake) into eight regional chapters, each of which includes a bonus pickle, preserve, and cocktail recipe. There are plenty of full-page color photographs to entice home cooks, who will find these recipes straightforward, flexible, and easy to reproduce. VERDICT More comprehensive than Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and Cook's Country Eats Local, Batali's heartfelt latest is sure to be popular.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2016
Batali has unquestionably proved himself as kitchen grand master of all things Italian. Having explored the specialties of Italy's regions, he now turns his attention homeward to what makes the cuisine of each region of the U.S. distinctive. This colorfully illustrated collection celebrates iconic American cooking with generally easily reproduced dishes that will delight people gathered for a family dinner or special event. New England's Boston cream pie and its lobster rolls appear, as does even French Canadian tourtiere (meat pie). The South offers fried green tomatoes, hoppin' John, and more. The Southwest sees its many chili-based dishes, and the Northwest, Pacific seafoods. When midwestern tastes call for tater-tot casserole, Batali ups the ante by making homemade cream of mushroom soup for its base. Desserts abound and, of course, feature all-American pie in its infinite coast-to-coast variations. Boosting recipes with color photographs, Batali makes every dish look like great fun, and it's impossible not to share his enthusiasm. His popularity alone will make this a required purchase for public libraries, but the variety of content will be welcomed by even those who aren't already fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)