Celebrating Italy

In this encyclopedic effort, IACP/Tastemaker Award-winner Field ( The Italian Baker ) takes readers on a fascinating culinary tour: a trip through Italy that in form is part guidebook, part cookbook and ``culinary archaeology'' at its best. Her Italy is a place of fairs, festivals,stet and historic and religious hoopla that transform the mundane into the magical: ``Festivals are a form of communion . . . not only for Italians but for Americans who happen upon them.'' Almost invariably, festivals are gastronomically obsessed, ``tied to the calendar and to the countryside.'' Field lures the reader to feasts of seafood, polenta, rice,stet and strawberries--even a Passover seder in Rome. And, from Tuscan grape harvest sweetbread (schiacciata all'uva)sic to creamy pumpkin-flavored rice (riso e zucca)sic and a Christmas soup of bread and cheese (li straccettisic ), she presents a host of unusual recipes. While they are organized by celebration, many are also incorporated into the author's modern menu suggestions. BOMC HomeStyle main selection; author tour. (Dec.)