If you’re like me, you can’t get enough of pasta. But if you’re tired of the usual pasta primavera, baked ziti, or pasta bolognese, perhaps one of these three cookbooks will help widen your pasta repertoire. Not lucky enough to have an Italian grandmother? Reach for La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy (Rizzoli) by The Italian Academy of Cuisine. Grandma wouldn’t mess around in the kitchen; this book doesn’t either. There are no distractions (no pictures, no illustrations) from the 2,000+ recipes that are jammed into almost 900 pages. The book’s strength lies in the fact that each recipe’s origins is provided. Such a simple thing may not seem like a big deal but it helps put things in context. A quick glance at the three caponata recipes will have you asking “why?” but a closer look reveals some slight but important differences: The one from Campania requires mackerel, whereas the one from Molise calls for tomatoes and eggs, and the Ligurian version lists salt-cured tuna loin as an ingredient. “Local Tradition” asides provide a more in-depth background to some of the recipes or ingredients. Put that alongside the text-only presentation of the recipes and you get very close to how Nonna’s own recipes would be preserved. Recipe to try: Leek and Chestnut Soup (More cookbook reviews and recipes after the jump.) Pasta Sfoglia (Wiley) by Ron and Colleen Suhanosky showcases Italian cooking in a “new but old” way, using seasonal and local ingredients while still putting their own…[...]

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Cookbooks (and Recipes) for Pasta Lovers