In a Roman Kitchen: Timeless Recipes from the Eternal City Review

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(More customer reviews)Two books on Roman cooking have appeared within the last eighteen (18) months, which gives us a golden opportunity to proof one against the other to find the better book. The first published last year is , `Cooking the Roman Way' by David Downie. The second, more recently published book is the current subject `In a Roman Kitchen: Timeless Recipes from the Eternal City' by Jo Bettoja.
In general, Downie's book appears to be based more on restaurante, trattoria, and osteria recipes while Bettoja seems to rely more on home cooking recipes. Still, there is a significant overlap of recipe names. I had no trouble at all finding five recipes with the same traditional Italian name, although the English translation of the name may have been a little different. I give high marks to both authors for giving the Italian names of all dishes in both the text and the index.
I compared the recipes for five dishes:
Gnocchi di Semolino alla Romana
Spaghetti alla Carbonara
Cipolline in Agrodolce alla Romana
Carciofi alla Giudia
Frittata con Zucchini
Although no pair of recipes was the same, I can find virtually nothing in these five recipes which would suggest that one author was presenting consistently superior recipes. I was slightly annoyed with Downie for specifying white coctail onions in the Cipolline recipe, especially since I have no trouble finding cipolline in my local Pennsylvania megamart. My conclusion that Downie relies on the Trattoria and Bettoja relies on the home is in the sources they cite for their recipes. Both appear to give equal time to the influence of the Jewish quarter on Roman cooking.
In Bettoja's case, the focus seems to be on a large number of recipes for each major type of Roman dish. She has, for example, more pasta, artichoke, and fava bean recipes than Downie, and also more dessert recipes. This is ironic since Downie controverts one of my hero Mario Batali's claims that Italians do not go in for sweets.
In contrast, Downie includes many seminally Roman recipes which Bettoja simply ignores. He has excellent recipes for making both Pizza Bianco, a certifiable Roman speciality, and fresh fettucini, including sound recommendations on making the fettucini completely by hand and with the assistance of power mixers and power pasta rolling machines. Most surprising of all is that Downie includes the recipe for Gnocchi di Patate while Bettoja does not. My understanding from Mario is that this is a Roman speciality and every trattoria in Rome serves it on Thursday. Alternately, Claudia Roden identifies it as a northern (Friuli) Italian speciality. Since Downie specifically cites potato gnocchi as the Roman canonical dish for Thursday and thereby agrees with Mario, I have to assume that while the dish may be promenant outside Rome, it is certainly a distinctively Roman dish as well.
Bettoja is a teacher who runs her own culinary school in Rome while Downie is a culinary journalist, so it surprises me that it is Downie who has the superior sidebars on some basic techniques such as how to clean an artichoke (sidebars with step by step photographs) and how to roast and skin sweet peppers.
Even though Bettoja's book is later and even though the books have identical list prices and almost identical page counts, Downie's book is much richer in the quality and quantity of it's photographs, almost all with useful captions. I generally do not count good photography to a cookbook's credit, but in the case of a book dedicated to so photogenic a location as Rome, I must make an exception here. For the identical price, Downie and his photographer and editors have simply done a much better job. Downie's book is also richer in sidebars on general Roman and Italian culinary matters. His headnotes for individual dishes are also richer in explaining the history of many dishes such as Fettucini Alfredo and Fettucini alla Papalina.
In the battle of the blurbs, Downie has Mario and Carol Field while Bettoja has Lidia Bastianich and Frances Mayes on her back cover. I think that's a tie.
I would buy both of these books, even with the rather substantial overlap in named dishes. The overlap is actually a plus for amateur foodie scholars, as it gives one the sense of exactly how different two sources can be with exactly the same dish. Bettoja is a great source for pasta recipes and Roman desserts, while Downie has much greater success at evoking the Roman ambiance and in covering deeper techniques. Downie also wins the points on domestic sources for flour and other Italian specialities. Bettoja rather quixotically gives us the telephone numbers of companies in Rome. Not very useful unless you plan to visit Rome in the near future.
Both books are recommended. If you need to choose one, I would pick Downie's book.

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"Not only has Jo Bettoja captured the intensely flavorful, bubbly, textured cuisine of Rome in her delightful book, she has captured the spirit of the Romans in each recipe.This wonderful addition to the world of Italian cookbooks will make you savor Rome with every bite." -Lidia Bastianich, author of Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen and Lidia's Italian Table, and host of the PBS series Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen"Of the major cities, Rome has the biggest heart. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the street markets and at the Roman table. Jo Bettoja takes us there-she cooks with a heart as full of largesse and gusto as that of her adopted city."-Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun"No one can come close to Jo Bettoja in either knowledge or intrinsic understanding of Roman cooking. She has lived in Rome for so long that the waters of the Tiber are mixed with her blood. In a Roman Kitchen is a classic." -Nick Malgieri, author of Great Italian and Perfect Cakes--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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