The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, a Search for Food and Family by Laura Schenone.
Laura Schenone was a woman on a mission. She wanted to make the family's traditional ravioli, the one served at Christmas. But even after finding the family recipe, she wasn't satisfied.
She went to Italy, not once, but three times to find people who could teach her about this special food. In the process of learning everything possible about ravioli, she learned a lot about her family and its many quirks, feuds and stories.
I, too, come from an Italian family that made ravioli for special dinners, so I understand her interest in cooking family recipes. What I had a hard time with was her obsession with finding out everything possible. Plus, while she has an interesting and typical immigrant family, they don't come across as warm and fuzzy. Maybe it was her prose, but the whole thing left me a bit cold. The cooking was fascinating, though.
By the end of this book I was ready to head into the kitchen and make a batch of ravioli. And that's saying something, because as you learn in reading this book, making ravioli is no easy thing.
This book is definitely worth reading if you are interested in Italian cooking. And it includes the recipes. But you won't have to search as hard as she did for your own authentic recipes. As Schenone concludes, there is no one right way to make ravioli. So cook, eat, enjoy.
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