How We Fell in Love with Italian Food

‘This is a book both for the historian and for the cook. Beautifully illustrated and interspersed with some classic recipes, it relates the conquest of Great Britain by Italian food and cooking from Roman times to these days. It is a book after my own heart.’ – Anna del Conte‘A work both academically rigorous and impassioned, it had me heading straight to the kitchen.’ – Joe Trivelli‘This remarkable book…looks at the influence of Italian food since the first century AD. … A triumph.’ * Country Life *‘Hugely enjoyable, informative - and culturally timely - How We Fell in Love with Italian Food is part-history, part-etymology, part-cookbook and part-memoir. … beautifully illustrated throughout … this is sprezzatura of the highest order.’ * The Balliol College Annual Record 2019 *‘A genuine appreciation of Italian food, authentic recipes from family and friends punctuate the chapters along with fascinating vintage imagery, and it’s all written in a lively, informative style. Not to be missed!’ * Italia Magazine *‘The book is full of such tempting little incentives to try things for oneself; and Professor Zancani is a most engaging cicerone.’ * Association of Pensioners of The University of Oxford Newsletter *Shortlisted in the Guild of Food Writers First Food Book Award - ‘This clever book by an Italian-born Oxford professor [is] big on history and social history, deftly moving between topics as diverse as food in Roman Britain, Dickens in Italy and Elizabeth David on courgettes. Judges praised it for being “exhaustively researched but approachable”, and loved the way this book “most definitely went further into the why and how we became obsessed with Italian food.”’ * Guild of Food Writers Awards *

Diego Zancani is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College and Emeritus Professor, Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford.