The Roads to Rome

In this lushly photographed cookbook, Wrisley and Vitaletti, who own Italian restaurants in Bangkok, take readers on a delightful culinary tour of Italy. For five years the pair deepened their knowledge of Italian cuisine by feasting north to south along the Appian Way and its arteries, stories of which they share in chapter introductions. They open with a trip to Norcia, near Perugia, which inspires a simple platter of cold cuts (along with sliced porchetta, roasted red peppers, and grilled marinated eggplant), and they end back at their farm outside of Rome with a demanding, sublime preparation of pappardelle in a ragu of pigeon and quail. In between, the duo spends days with a quirky inventor-farmer who lives near Pisa and inspired their creamy, egg-rich carbonara; discover that colatura, an Italian condiment similar to Asian fish sauce, is produced much the same as it was in the 1700s, in the coastal Campania region; and dine on seafood meatballs (minced calamari and white fish) and orecchiette with broccoli rabe from Bari—“the end of the Appian Way.” The result is a tantalizing collection of authentic, rustic Italian recipes. (Nov.)