Jewish Cooking and Culture in Rome, The Eternal City – Portico by Leah Koenig

What a wonderful book...the recipes are enticing, the pictures are stunning, and the commentary is so interesting. My only wish is that such a book had existed before I traveled to Rome in 1983, on my first trip abroad. Even though I had read guidebooks, I had almost no information about the former Jewish Ghetto, and I was dissuaded even from going to Trastevere, having been told that it was a dangerous neighborhood at the time, and perhaps it was for a young woman tourist on her own. After a couple of incidents of unwanted and aggressive attention, I took the warning seriously. Now, after reading this cookbook I am absolutely ready for fourth Italian sojourn, which would certainly now include Jewish Rome.