By skyforbes 
Milk Street Back roads Italy: Finding Italy’s Forgotten Recipes (A Cookbook) by Christopher Kimball (Author), J. M. Hirsch (Author) 2025 Little Brown and Co. (Voracious)
When an Italian cookbook crosses my desk, I usually roll my eyes. I think, “Here we go again, another list of recipes for Sunday Gravy and lasagna. No big whoop, as they say.” However, having a book by Milk Street normally indicates something good — it promises a fresh take, not the same old Olive Garden retread.
The editors at Milk Street have clearly spent years on this, searching for new spins on classic recipes, as well as those delightful, little-known regional favorites that never quite crossed the Atlantic. And let me tell you, they delivered.
This book offers genuinely new ways with pasta, from a foolproof cacio e pepe to Puglia’s olive oil–crisped fettuccine with chickpeas. There’s even a lemony pesto from Amalfi where the pasta dough itself is enriched with citrus. Plus, I found some surprising tomato sauces, including the show-stopping spaghetti all’assassina from Bari — spicy, charred, and ingeniously made in one skillet,
My hands-down favorite dish is the Pasta Con Radicchio, Noci e Pepe Nero (pasta with radicchio, walnuts, and black pepper). But I found many other gems, including:
- Insalata di Arance, Finocchi e Capperi Siciliane: A vibrant orange and fennel salad.
- S’erbuzzu: A hearty Sardinian Herb soup with white beans.
- Torta Al Testo: Flatbread with sausage and broccoli rabe.
They’ve included an eggplant Parmesan that’s rich without ever being fried, meatball-like bread dumplings simmered in chicken broth, and a savory herb soup studded with pancetta, beans, and tiny nuggets of pasta. The dessert offerings were a bit meh, but the exhaustive list of pasta dishes more than made up for it.
Ultimately, Milk Street Back roads Italy offers a visually inspiring journey, featuring high-quality photographs and a strong selection of regional, vegetable-forward entries — especially within its exhaustive list of pasta recipes — that satisfy the quest for new Italian takes. That said, those deeply familiar with quality Italian cooking might find the material nothing new under the sun. My biggest personal critique, however, is the chaotic and overwhelming arrangement of recipes, a badly planned design that regrettably reminded me of the Readers Digest Books of the ’70s, and not in a good way.
Milk Street Backroads Italy: The Verdict
Ratings: 4 out of 5 *****
The Good
- Gorgeous visuals: High-quality photographs highlight what the food is meant to look like, and the images of Italy are inspiring.
- Good Examples of Classics: While there are many classic dishes, there are enough obscure entries to satisfy anyone searching for new recipes and new takes on Italian cooking.
- Vegetable-Forward & Regional: The book is very vegetable-forward and highlights diverse regions of Italy, moving beyond a single, generic style of Italian cuisine.
- Exhaustive Pasta List: The sheer variety of pasta dishes alone is worth the price of admission.
The Bad
- Familiar Territory: For seasoned readers of Italian cuisine, or those who have eaten in quality Italian restaurants or visited Italy, the recipes might feel like nothing new under the sun.
- Chaotic Layout (For Me): The arrangement of recipes is where I personally found the book off-putting. The design of the contents seems badly planned and overwhelming. It reminded me very much of the Readers Digest Books of the ’70s, and not in a good way.
About the Author: About the Author
Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street is located at 177 Milk Street in downtown Boston and is dedicated to changing the way America cooks with new flavor combinations and techniques learned around the world. Milk Street is home to Milk Street TV, a three-time Emmy Award winning public television show, a James Beard Award-winning bimonthly magazine, an award-winning radio show/podcast, a cooking school, and an online retail store with over 1,500 kitchen tools and ingredients. Milk Street is the author of 10 cookbooks, including “Cookish,” “Vegetables,” and the James Beard winning “Milk Street: Tuesday Nights.” Milk Street also invests in non-profit outreach, partnering with FoodCorp, Big Sister Association of Greater Boston and the Boys & Girls club of Dorchester. (Little Brown and Co.)
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About the Well Seasoned Librarian
Hailing from San Diego and spending his teenage years in the Pacific Northwest, Dean Jones has become a seasoned resident of the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years. A true foodie and lover of the written word, Dean wears many hats: librarian, cookbook reviewer, and writer.
Catch him at book festivals, farmers’ markets, bookstores, or savoring a delicious meal at a local restaurant. Dean’s passion for food and literature shines through his published works. You can find his reviews in “Amoral Beatitudes Magazine” and his insightful articles on platforms like Medium’s “One Table One World,” “The Cookbook for All,” “An Idea,” and “Authors What Are You Reading?” Currently, Dean keeps Benicia Times Herald readers informed with his regular cookbook review column.
Connect with Dean:
- Email: [email protected]
- Podcast: Linktree (Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, YouTube)
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsibP5oAUIam8sOT-MZdXig