PASTA, PANE, VINO
A travelogue, a patient investigation of Italy’s cuisine, a loving profile of the everyday heroes who bring Italy to the table. Learn more about Roads & Kingdoms’ latest book.
We lost a giant on Friday, a man who has been a part of Roads & Kingdoms from the beginning, first as inspiration, and later—what luck we had—as a partner, friend, and publisher. It just so happens that June 12 is the release date of our latest book with Tony. This one was special to all of us, not least because it is a deep and soulful dive into a country that meant so much to Tony in these last years: Italy. There have been so many incredible tributes from so many who were touched by his life and ideas. This book, Pasta Pane Vino, is ours.
Deep Travels Through Italy’s Food Culture
By Matt Goulding
Pasta, Pane, Vino is the latest edition of the genre-bending Roads & Kingdoms style pioneered under Anthony Bourdain’s imprint in Rice, Noodle, Fish (2016 Travel Book of the Year, Society of American Travel Writers) and Grape, Olive, Pig (2017 IACP Award, Literary Food Writing).
Pasta, Pane, Vino is not a cookbook. This is something more: a travelogue, a patient investigation of Italy’s cuisine, a loving profile of the everyday heroes who bring Italy to the table. Town by town, bite by bite, author Matt Goulding brings Italy to life through intimate portraits of its food culture and the people pushing it in new directions: Three globe-trotting brothers who became the mozzarella kings of Puglia; the pizza police of Naples and the innovative pies that stay one step ahead of the rules; the Barolo Boys who turned the hilly Piedmont into one of the world’s great wine regions.
(Read: How Anthony Bourdain helped bring Pasta, Pane, Vino to life)
Praise for the book
“Italy is a beautiful but complicated place, not so much a country as a collection of cultures and cuisines. Matt Goulding expertly navigates its wonders and eccentricities with wisdom and great passion.” — Anthony Bourdain
“Goulding is pioneering a new type of writing about food.” — Financial Times
Sneak peek inside the book
Eat Like an Italian
The nonna has long been the progenitor of Italian food culture—the expert on ingredients, the developer of recipes, the protector of food’s place at the center of life in Italy. If you’re not lucky enough to have (or befriend) an Italian nonna, try RentaMamma.com for a chance to spend an evening feasting in a real Italian home.
The Bread Brothers
Once upon a time in Puglia, dense-crusted, tender-crumbed semolina loaves were the lifeblood of roaming shepherds, who could count on the bread to stay good for a week of wandering with their flocks. Today, the shepherds have cars and smartphones, but pane di Altamura is no less vital to life in these parts.
The Pig Protector
Mora romagnola pigs once dominated the hills of Ravenna in central Italy. But the menace of modernity reduced those numbers dramatically until just 15 remained at the dawn of the 21st century. Cue the food fighters: a small handful of farmers set about reviving the black-haired beasts known for their abundance of sweet fat.
Amazing Shit in the Middle of Nowhere
You’ll find excellent food on most city blocks across the country, but you won’t always find an experience—a journey that transports you to a world beyond the food on your plate. These are the meals that count, the ones that follow you for the rest of your life. There are hundreds of far-flung feasts worthy of a pilgrimage in Italy, but these five are as good a place to start as any.
Salumi Selector
Take your pick: Lean legs of spiced beef air-dried up to four months; a Tuscan salame seasoned with fennel and red wine; the heart of the hind leg of pig, cured in a pig or cow bladder; cured, unsmoked pork belly. Eaten raw or cooked crispy; pork fat seasoned with herbs and spices and cured in Tuscan marble; emulsified pork speckled with fat, pepper, and pistacchio.
Ode to the Agriturismo
The place you see at night when you close your eyes and dream of Italy: a rural B&B where everything is beautiful and delicious and nothing hurts. Run almost exclusively by families with deep connections to the local terrain, the agriturismo is not just an affordable place to sleep and eat, but a window into local culture you won’t find at a hotel.
Drink Like an Italian
Italians are famously fastidious about when they drink what. Sunrise to 11 a.m. is cappuccino time, the early afternoon for espresso (milk is anathema after 12 p.m.). Early evenings are for aperitivo—wine or beer, chased with snacks—and after dinner is time for the stronger stuff: grappa, a cocktail, or a digestivo.
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