For all you Sopranos fans eagerly anticipating the new season and hoping it is better than the last, here is something to whet your appetites in the meantime.
The Sopranos' Family Cookbook is a light, fun, entertaining read. And, oh yeah — it also happens to be an excellent Italian-American cookbook.
The backdrop for the book is the Soprano family itself. The book features war stories and reminiscences told by the characters from the HBO television series.
Through amusing and witty vignettes, you hear bits and pieces of the "history" of the Soprano family. There are also revealing and entertaining letters between family members.
One section has Uncle Junior telling stories about Newark's Little Italy. Another has Carmella Soprano revealing her Sicilian heritage (she looks the least Siciliano of the bunch, but hey, this is fiction).
The book's recipes are presented as if they were gathered by Artie Bucco, chef of the show's ill-fated restaurant, Vesuvio. Furio even weighs in, telling why he doesn't like the food in America: "First, you use too much sauce on your spaghetti. Very bad. Too soupy."
Lots of still photographs from the show round out the entertainment aspect of this book. Even if you don't like to cook, you'll find the book entertaining if you are a Sopranos fan.
But there is more than fluff here. The recipes are authentic and easy-to-follow. And the dishes featured are good old Italian recipes, adapted for emigrant American cooking methods and tastes.
Some of the recipes are given names that are uniquely New Jersey/New York in origin (for instance, calling a certain meat-laden tomato sauce "Sunday gravy," a name not used outside of the East Coast). But Italian-Americans in other parts of the United States will certainly recognize the food, no matter what it is called.
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