Description
Farrar Strauss Stolen Figs by Mark Rotella
Calabria Is The Toe Of The Boot That Is Italy -- A Rugged Peninsula Where Grapevines And Fig And Olive Trees Cling To The Mountainsides During Scorching Summers. Calabria Is Also A Seedbed Of Italian-American Culture; In North America, More People Of Italian Heritage Trace Their Roots To Calabria Than To Almost Any Other Region In Italy.Mark Rotella'S Stolen Figs -- Named A Best Travel Book Of 2003 By Condé Nast Traveler -- Is A Marvelous Evocation Of Calabria. A Grandson Of Calabrese Immigrants, Rotella Persuades His Father To Visit The Region For The First Time In Thirty Years; Once There, He Meets Giuseppe, A Postcard Photographer Who Becomes His Guide. As They Travel Around The Region, Giuseppe Initiates Rotella -- And The Reader -- Into Its Secrets: How To Make A Soppressata And 'Nduja, And, Of Course, How To Steal A Fig Without Committing A Crime. Stolen Figs Is A Model Travelogue -- At Once Charming And Wise, And Full Of An Earthy And Unpretentious Sense Of Life That Now, As Ever, Characterizes Calabria And Its People.