cover image Zuppa

Zuppa

Margaret Romagnoli. Henry Holt & Company, $25 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8050-3833-0

To many Americans, Italian food means pasta, pizza and maybe gelato. The Romagnolis' new collection may add zuppa to that list. In a tour of Italy that presents 144 soup recipes from 17 regions, the authors explore variations of a dish that they describe as ""something--vegetables, meat, fish, or fowl--cooked in a broth, with or without thickeners."" Each regional section begins with a few pages on that region's history, agriculture and people. Some soups (Goulash Soup of Alto Adige or Sardinian Couscous Soup) show the influence of neighboring cuisines. Others, like Lombardy's Rice and Frogs' Legs Soup, rely on local ingredients or specialties. Some soups are common all over Italy but vary greatly by region. Bean soups, for example, include, among others, Rice and Bean Soup from Venice; Chickpea, Bean and Barley Soup from Liguria; Bean and Cabbage ""Reboiled"" Soup from Tuscany; Fresh Bean Soup from Le Marche; and Apulian Pasta and Bean Soup with Mussels. Similar itineraries can be based on fish soups from Liguria to Sicily or on vegetable soups from Genoese Minestrone with Pesto to Calabrian Onion Soup. Many recipes depend for their goodness on homemade broths, the recipes for which are included in a final section on basics. Almost all the recipes in the book are simple to make and based on inexpensive, widely available ingredients; many would make fine one-dish suppers. (Nov.) FYI: Margaret Romagnoli, coauthor with her husband of The Romagnolis' Table and other notable cookbooks, died last year.