Mietta's Italian Family Recipes

From Milan to Melbourne

The Italian Recipes On-Line

In this beautifully produced hardcover book, Mietta O'Donnell brings to life the culture and history of generations of Italian restaurant families who changed the way Australians think about food - showing them the pleasures of life at and beyond the table, through food, wine, conversation, art and music.

With assistance from chef and former restaurateur, Silvana Palmira, Mietta presents over 185 recipes, covering soups, fish and seafood, meat and game, chicken, bread, as well as those dishes unique to the Italian dinner table - pasta, antipasto, risotto and sumptuous Italian desserts. Together Mietta and Silvana reveal the delights of the traditional Italian kitchen, showing how original Italian recipes can be re-interpreted to suit modern Australian lifestyles, ingredients and equipment.

Mietta's Italian Family Recipes also provides a fascinating history of early Italian immigration; sharing the experience of arriving in a raw young Australia early this century. Mietta traces the influence of a sophisticated culture with an understanding of true hospitality, who had a profound impact on dining and restaurant culture here. These early Italian restaurateurs were responsible for nurturing and feeding our artists and entertainers, politicians and ordinary folk alike, sharing their enjoyment and celebration of life.

Lavishly illustrated with Mietta's own family photographs, and those of other Italian restaurant families, this is a uniquely personal journey into Australia's culinary past.

"Who were the subtle Europeans who showed a raw young Australia how to eat well and enjoy the food the land produced? How did they perform that exuberant labour of kitchen love, the Italians who began arriving in Melbourne three or four generations ago? Mietta's Italian Family Recipes interweaves a loving story of Mietta's own family and friend with a clear and practicle exposition of all the good Italian sense she learned in the kitchen at home- the secrets Mietta drew on as one of Australia's most celebrated restaurateurs. The social history is fascinating, the kitchen wisdom beyond praise, and Mietta's family snaps are a delight." Peter Robb, author of Midnight in Sicily and M