Italy, the Romagnoli Way: A Culinary Journey by Franco G. Romagnoli, Gwen Romagnoli

Synopsis

 
 
ITALY OFF THE EATEN PATH: A Culinary Journey to the Old Country’s Hidden Treasures                         (Lyons)
G. Franco Romagnoli and Gwen Romagnoli
 
 
 
The bestselling author and television chef presents a succulent food travelogue of his homeland.
 
 
Rome native G. Franco Romagnoli first introduced American television viewers to Italian cooking back in the 1960s, when he starred with his late wife Margaret on two television series for PBS-TV, including The Romagnolis’ Table. The first cooking show of its kind led the couple to national fame, during which they wrote nine cookbooks and toured the world giving cooking demonstrations and opened several restaurants in the Boston area.  
 
Romagnoli continued to teach cooking and to write articles for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Gourmet magazine, Food & Wine, and The Atlantic Monthly.  He remarried in 1998 and now he and his wife Gwen present an unforgettable tour of Italy’s lesser known, secret jewels: the mountain streams of Val d’Aosta, which provide beauty as well as savory trout; Tuscany serves up the cannelloni and wild venison of Tuscany; risotto with frogs’ legs from Lake Orta; couscous with capers from Pantelleria; truffles from Alba, as well as cultural history such as the tuna hunting ritual mattanza on the Egadi islands and olive oil pressing in Puglia. Sharing the geography, history, and art of each region as wellas the character of its people, the Romagnolis bring little-known Italy to life—and to our tables—with full-color photographs to please travelers, food lovers and armchair dreamers. 
 
G. Franco and Gwen Romagnoli live in Boston.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Publishers Weekly

Like a modern-day Virgil and Beatrice, the Romagnolis, cohosts of the PBS series The Romagnolis' Table, conduct a breathless journey through the paradisiacal food and wine regions of Italy. Beginning at the northern Alpine border of Italy, the two move slowly south, savoring food and wine as well as people and places. Their love of the country shines through their adoring descriptions of locales. Chiavari, in the northwestern region of Liguria, is an elegantly simple, relaxed and pleasant city, facing a sheltered sea and untouched by winter. In Emilia-Romagno, the Romagnolis set off on a quest to find the perfect prosciutto ham and Parmigiano cheese for which the region is famous. They discover not only a prosciutto that ideally combines creamy marbled fat and salty crispness, they also stumble across a violin museum where they listen raptly to the lush strains of a 1715 Stradivarius that transports them to the baroque period. In Calabria, a young boy brings the Romagnolis a meal of super-fresh braided mozzarella, just-picked garden tomatoes, a warm loaf of country bread and a carafe of cool, dry and sharp as a blade white wine, which they declare is the best meal they have ever had. Recipes accompany every chapter, and the Romagnolis' intimate storytelling and love of Italian food and culture carry readers on an unforgettable journey.
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Biography

From 1974 to 1976, G. Franco Romagnoli was the writer and co-talent with his wife of two television series on Italian cookery, "The Romagnolis' Table." From 1979 to 1989, the Romagnolis supervised the operation of their restaurants, "The Romagnolis' Table" in Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, and in Salem and Burlington, Massachusetts. Mr. Romagnoli's travel and gastronomy articles have been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, Eating Well Magazine, Gourmet Magazine, Food and Wine Magazine, Cook's Illustrated, and The Los Angeles Times.  Two of his short stories, as well as a travel-food piece, have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. From 1991 to the present, Mr. Romagnoli has taught cooking lessons and a series of seminars on Italian culture and gastronomy at Boston University, and has led eno-gastronomy tours to various regions of Italy. He is the author of several countless books on cooking and Italian cuisine.
 
Gwen O'Sullivan Romagnoli was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pa. She has worked at the Rome NBC News bureau, wrote a monthly fashion bulletin for the Rome High Fashion Institute as well as articles about the Rome show business scene for The American Daily and Variety. She has written travel and food articles for the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and Expressions, The American Express Magazine.