Going Beyond Recipes, Book Journeys Through Italian Mind and Heart : The Renaissance of Italian Cooking by Lorenza de’ Medici (Fawcett Columbine: $30, 192 pp., illustrated)

There is no doubt that Lorenza de’ Medici’s new book is a dazzler. Lots of beautiful pictures, plenty of mouthwatering recipes.

But de’ Medici has also hit on a new trend in cookbooks to come. Her book gives you more than recipes and pictures. It takes you on a vicarious journey through the mind and heart of the author.

Her vehicle is a gastronomic adventure into modern Italy’s aristocratic cucina alto-borghese with roots in the Renaissance; the cuisine of her ancestral past.

De’ Medici, who traces her ancestry to the Renaissance blue blood, Lorenzo de’ Medici, was the food editor of Vogue Italia, cooking teacher and author of several cookbooks on Italian cooking.

“Let’s stop in Piedmont,” de’ Medici seems to say in her first chapter. Piedmont, after all, is the ancestral home of the author. The place that is close to her heart.

“Here I blissfully passed several weeks of every year until I was 18 years old,” says de’ Medici.

There at the castle of Monale, which had been in the family for more than 600 years beginning with its purchase by the Scarampi family in 1376, the core of Renaissance cuisine took place. The castle now belongs to Carolo Emanuele and his sister, Nicoletta Balbo Bertone di Sambuy, who permitted a Scarampi family wedding reunion to take place and be recorded by de’ Medici.

It was September in Piedmont, “a perfect time to visit . . . because so many of its basic ingredients come to maturity during this season: truffles, with which the fortunate Piemontesi are able to flavor almost every dish--on eggs, sunny side up seems to me the height of gourmandise abandon; cardoons, an edible white thistle that is the distinguishing mark of authentic bagna cauda Piemontese; grapes and walnuts that complement many a dessert as well as other dishes of the region; partridge, pheasant and several other kinds of small game that form the substance of grand repasts both in homes and restaurants.”

Then you have a few menus, which include the wedding reception menu, with recipes such as carde cruda al limone (raw beef on lemon slice), peperoni ripieni di riso (peppers stuffed with rice), pomodori in salsa verde (tomatoes with green sauce); insalata di uva (grape salad), vitello tonnato (cold veal and tuna sauce), polpettone di Monale (Castle Monale meat loaf), torta della sposa (wedding cake) and tartufi di castagne (chestnut truffles).

There is a picture of polenta in the Piedmont chapter that fairly jumps out of the pages and into your mouth. And a recipe for the polenta and braised beef.

It is spring in Liguria, the next stop. “From the high terraced farms with carefully tended parcels of land wafts the fragrance of Liguria, always the first characteristic of this region to welcome me when I arrive. It is also a foretaste of the aromatic cooking to come.”

So we hear about maggiorano, sweet marjoram, the blooming borage used to stuff ravioli or to fill frittata. We hear about basilico, the king of Ligurian herbs, whose name is derived from the Greek word meaning royal. Then we hear about pesto, the region’s culinary identity.

“As the name from the Italian word to pound or crush implies, pesto is made by crushing with a mortar and pestle a bunch of fresh basil leaves, a clove or two of garlic, a pinch of salt and a handful of pine nuts and a bit of pecorino cheese. When these have been ground into a fine paste, some olive oil is mixed in until it becomes a smooth sauce, fresh green in color. This much, at least is canonical. Butter is not added in the old recipes, neither are walnuts or Parmesan cheese mentioned,” de’ Medici explains.

The menus from the chapter provide the reader with other identifiably Genoese dishes, such as torta pasqualina (artichoke pie) baccala alle olive (dried cod with potatoes), coniglio ripieno (stuffed rabbit and lasagnette al pesto (small lasagna with pesto sauce) that looks as good as it must taste.

Lombary, the home of Milan, the Lake district and some of de’ Medici’s closest friends, who allowed her to photograph their homes and tables follows. A menu typical of Lombardian cuisine given for old friends includes a rice soup with filet of beef, a roast guinea fowl, cabbage rolls and peach pudding with mint.

The villas of Venice, thinks the author, make all others “seem like poor country cousins.” And a tour of some of the most sumptuous villas is sprawled lavishly on the pages of the chapter as are the exciting recipes used to entertain guests or friends with a chamber-music concert supper.

Once you begin your journey through the pages, it’s hard to close the book. The Palazzo Bosdari a Bologna in Emilia-Romagna beckons. Parma, synonymous with prosciutto and Parmigiano Reggiano. Emilia-Romagna is also the home of Modena, where balsamic vinegar originated. But there is more. “It would be sacrilege to bypass the gastronomic capital of Northern Italy and Artusi’s “holy of holies” of Italian cuisine on an Epicurean pilgrimage, so back we go to Bologna.

It’s the pasta that tempts the traveler in Bologna, for the Bolognesi have refined the culinary staple to an art, says de’ Medici. The tortellini, tagliatelle, lasagna, cappelletti and Bolognese sauce--a ragu, a thick stew of onions, carrots, pork, veal, butter and tomatoes usually enriched with chicken livers and cream--spell the cuisine of Bologna. The costolette all Bolognese, in which veal chops are prepared with the region’s staple foods (Parmesan, prosciutto and white truffles), is one of the cuisine’s most celebrated dishes.

We finally arrive in Tuscany, where the 11th-Century castle of Badia a Coltibuono stands. It is the ancestral home of de’ Medici’s husband, Piero Stucchi Perinetti. There, de’ Medici manages the Villa Table, a cooking school that holds weeklong cooking classes in English throughout the year.

For the first 800 years the castle was a fortified Benedictine abbey, and for almost 200 years thereafter the hereditary home of her husband’s family, the Giuntinis, a family of Florentine bankers who purchased the abbey after Napoleon had confiscated the property from the monks.

“Coltibuono has so many facets--medieval abbey, modern winery and farm, major Tuscan cultural and scenic attraction,” she said.

There are menus for family suppers that include a roast pork made with fennel, potatoes filled with bay leaves (given below) the famous bread soup, the spiedini of sausages, onions stuffed with amaretti, wild boar in sweet and sour chocolate sauce and ice cream made with chestnut blossom.

There is more.

Chapters on Sadegna (Sardinia), Umbria and Lazio and Campania are filled with visits to the homes of friends who have shared their life style hospitality with de’ Medici. In Naples, Marquess Franco Santasilia di Torpino opens her Palazzo Calabrito to de’ Medici, as do Umberto di Sasvoia and his wife, Maria Jose.

There are menus “fit for a king,” which include tuna mousse with green beans, meat loaf in a crust, walnut salad and miniature sweet pizzas. In another menu, a wheel of provolone cheese is filled with rigatoni, eggs are deep fried, green beans are served in yellow pepper sauce and the dessert is a charlotte of chestnut puree.

The travels come to an end with visits to Puglia and Sicily, the lands of cross cultures strewn with influences from North African Arabs, crusading warriors and traders whose routes have passed through the area since antiquity. There are dishes made with fennel and artichokes, white fish baked in wine, beets cooked with mint, lamb chops served with caper sauce.

In Sicily, de’ Medici takes the reader on a pleasant gastronomic tour of Regaleali, the country estate and winery of Count Giuseppe Tasca d’Almerita and a visit to the kitchen where Mario Lo Menzo is the full-time chef.

His banquet is a stunning example of Sicilian cuisine, starting with antipasti of angel hair pasta croquettes, pumpkin fritters, baked stuffed mussels, macaroni with cauliflower, spaghetti with lentil sauce, pasta rings baked in eggplant and tomatoes. And for the second course, pheasant pate, glazed medallions of chicken and sardines baked in orange. The vegetable course includes a fennel salad, mushrooms with Marsala and sliced lemon salad. And for dessert, there is pistachio ice cream gateau, tangerine gelatin and cinnamon cannoli.

Reading the names alone is a gastronomic adventure.

The photographs by John Ferro Sims, de’ Medici’s personalized travelogue and recipes are bonuses. If nothing else, they make the book a worthwhile and enjoyable addition to any coffee table.

Here are some of de’ Medici’s favorite recipes from her own table in Tuscany. All the recipes, by the way, are given in both metric and standard measures. They are easy to read and, for those with some experience in cooking, easy to follow.

ROAST PORK WITH FENNEL

(Arista di Maiale al Finocchio)

1 sprig rosemary

4 cloves garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds

1 (3-pound) pork loin roast, bones split

1/4 cup butter

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 fennel bulb

1/2 cup milk

1 cup white wine

Finely chop rosemary and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste and fennel seeds. Stuff mixture into cuts in pork where bones were split. Place meat in roasting pan with 1/2 butter and olive oil and bake at 325 degrees 2 hours.

Roughly chop fennel bulb, then cook in covered saucepan with remaining butter and small amount of water over low heat until tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to blender, add milk and blend until smooth.

When meat is cooked, slice and arrange on serving platter. Keep warm.

Pour off fat from roasting pan and deglaze with white wine. Boil few minutes, then add fennel mixture. Mix well and strain over meat. Additional fennel sauce can be served at table. Makes 6 servings.

POTATOES WITH BAY LEAVES

(Patate all’Alloro)

12 small potatoes, unpeeled

12 fresh bay leaves

Salt, pepper

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Wash and dry potatoes. Make lengthwise slit in each one. Place bay leaf in slit and season with salt and pepper.

Heat olive oil in baking pan placed over medium heat on stove. Set potatoes side by side in pan. Transfer to oven and bake at 350 degrees 1 hour, or until potatoes are golden brown and easily pierced with fork. Arrange around roast pork. Makes 6 servings.