Mamma, Si Mangia? (Mama, Are We Eating?): A Florentine Son Shares His Feisty Mother's Recipes

Italian-bred Mafalda Fallai spent her whole life cooking-gathering free greens from nature, arguing about quality with hapless shopkeepers, and preparing sumptuous meals even when leaving her native Florence to visit her son and his family on Long Island. The co-authors, a husband-and-wife team, along with a food writer, serve up 60 of Mafalda's favorite recipes, which run the gamut from gourmet to peasant-style, and bring Florentine and Umbrian influence to a cookbook like no other. Dishes range across every course of a meal, providing unique treatments such as Spaghetti with Truffle Sauce, Chops Livornese, Tuna with Canneloni Beans, Cream Puffs with Crema Chantilly, Grape Cake, and Zuppa Inglese. While you're waiting between the cooking steps that are clearly provided, enjoy reading a proud son's remembrances of his mother's explanations as to why hers is the only way to prepare each dish, along with droll illustrations by Mafalda's daughter-in-law.… (more)