We Called It Macaroni: An American Heritage of Southern Italian Cooking

Newcomer Barr's contribution to the Knopf Cooks American series dishes up 250 bravura recipes but oversauces them in nostalgia. Refreshingly nondoctrinaire, Barr argues for the ``American'' identity of the cuisine developed by waves of immigrants from Southern Italy, whose novel relative prosperity allowed them to refurbish traditional recipes with previously luxurious ingredients (``Poor families in Sicily might see the butcher only twice a year,'' she reminds us). Her recipes, all standouts, all lucidly explained, include a Calabrian eggplant salad seasoned with fresh mint; a parsley pizza; ``eggs in purgatory'' (``not so bad, that is, so hot, as being `allastet diavolo' ''); and a paprika sauce for pasta that demonstrates the synthesis of New World flavors. There are also obligatory ragus, meat rolls, lasagnas. Her frequent and repetitious interpolations of ``food memories'' from a cast of Italo-Americans distract, nonetheless, from the excellence of Barr's work; they skirt history and settle, mostly, for sentiment. Illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC/HomeStyle alternate. (Nov.)