Pasta: The Spirit and Craft of Italy's Greatest Food, with Recipes

A stylish, transporting pasta master class from New York City's premier pasta chef, with recipes for 40 handmade pasta shapes and 100 Italian American, regional Italian, and modern dishes.

Food trends come and go, but pasta holds strong year after year. Despite its humble ingredients--made of merely flour and water or flour and eggs--the magic, rituals, and art of pasta making span over five centuries. Two ingredients are turned into hundreds of stuffed, rolled, extruded, dried, stamped, and handcut shapes, each with its own unique provenance and enrobed in a favored sauce.

New York City chef Missy Robbins fell in love with Italian food and pasta twenty-five years ago. She has been cooking, researching, and studying her way across Italy ever since, which led her to open two of America's favorite pasta restaurants, Lilia and Misi. With illustrated step-by-step recipes for handmaking forty of the most versatile pasta shapes and one hundred recipes for Italian-American, regional Italian (all regions), and Robbins' own best pasta dishes, plus two dozen vegetable sides, this is the hard-working manual for home cooks who aspire to master the art of pasta cooking.

Whether making pasta sheets for lasagna or stamping out pasta coins for Corzetti with Goat Cheese and Asparagus--or even buying handmade pasta to make Tagliatelle with Porcini, Rosemary, and Garlic--Robbins provides all the inspiration, instruction, and encouragement required to make pasta exceptionally well. Evocatively photographed with nearly 100 full-color mouthwatering photos of pasta dishes and twenty images from Italy, this is a richly illustrated ode to the ingredients, recipes, and craft that have made pasta the most popular fare of a beloved cuisine.

Review

"With a 45-page section on various shapes alone, Robbins and Baoicchi answer every question you could possibly have about Italy's most famous carb. If you've ever wanted to make espresso-flavored pasta dough or concoct a dreamy tortellini en brodo (both thoughts I've personally had), this book is for you."--Food & Wine

".... a commanding volume on one of the world's best-loved foods."--Bloomberg

"Missy Robbins's immensely talented hands and mind imbue her cookbook with an amazing artistry. I can think of no other chef that is Missy's equal. She has managed the impossible--to craft an extremely user-friendly pasta encyclopedia. Any cook, be they professional or passionate amateur, will be well equipped to navigate the prolific world of pasta guided by this beautiful cookbook. It will sit by my pasta pot, ready for action."--Jonathan Waxman, chef and author of The Barbuto Cookbook

"This book is an honest, passionate, and pure ode to pasta in its most celebrated, simplistic, and delicious form--a reminder of how two humble ingredients can rock your world and your palate. Pasta will transport you to every region of Italy. More important, it will teach you to trust each of your senses and to instinctually feel your way through pasta making."--Athena Calderone, author of the James Beard Award-winning Cook Beautiful

"I've long admired Missy and her ability to create beautiful, thoughtful, and simply delicious technique-driven dishes with ease. This book is an immersion in the love of craft, storytelling, and dedication to all of that."--Kristen Kish, chef, TV personality, and author of Kristen Kish Cooking

"In Italy, pasta is more than a food. It is a religion. I was raised with a mother and grandmother in the kitchen rolling out egg pasta dough every day. Flipping through this book, I was reminded of their gestures and loving hands as they worked the dough into multiple shapes and forms. Missy and Talia have explored the far corners of the Italian pasta rituals through storytelling, recipes, and delicate imagery to illustrate how joyful and rewarding pasta making can be. They have captured the essence of the craft and added fine details to foster anyone's desire to master the skill. Bravissime!"--Massimo Bottura, chef/owner, Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy

"A section of Italian-American recipes features good old spaghetti and meatballs, as well as a grown-up baked ziti with aged provolone and caciocavallo. Elsewhere, surprising ingredients and combinations, such as ricotta and Tuscan kale-filled cappelletti with fennel pollen turn up in a section of 'modern classics' that successfully riff on traditional entrées. These hearty dishes are as filling as they are full of heart."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

Missy Robbins is the James Beard Award-winning chef/owner of the acclaimed Lilia and Misi in Brooklyn. Prior to opening Lilia, Robbins cooked at Spiaggia in Chicago and then became the executive chef for A Voce in Manhattan, earning a Michelin star at both locations and three stars from The New York Times. She was a contestant on season four of Top Chef Masters, has appeared on Good Morning America, and has been profiled in a range of publications, from Vanity Fair to InStyle. She lives, makes pasta, and cooks in Brooklyn.

Talia Baiocchi is the editor in chief of PUNCH, the author of Sherry and Spritz, and a widely published food and culture writer. She lives in Brooklyn.