The new George Clooney thriller currently in theaters, The American, is set in Italy’s Abruzzo region. The area—midway up Italy’s boot, on the Adriatic side—is known for its glorious cuisine, heavy on chili pepper, and famous for its chitarra (guitar) pasta, which gets its name from the wire-stringed instrument on which it is made. With the movie, cookbook author and food stylist Maria Filice has found herself uniquely poised to talk about Abruzzo’s food—and give her cookbook a boost. Filice, author of Breaking Bread in L’Aquila, which Food & Fate Publishing (an imprint of Telos Press) published in April of this year, contributed three regional recipes to The American’s Web site.
Focus asked Filice to provide three recipes exemplifying the cuisine that Clooney’s character—Jack, who sits down to dine at a number of cafes in the small villages high up in Abruzzo’s mountains –might have enjoyed. Filice, a Canadian-American who has traveled extensively in Abruzzo, said she was glad to contribute recipes, especially following the devastating earthquake that hit the region in April 2009. “I was thrilled to be contacted by Focus Features and asked to contribute to the movie in some way,” she said. “Abruzzo is unusually rustic and beautiful, with the sophistication and Baroque elegance of L’Aquila at its center.” Filice timed the release of her book to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the earthquake, and is donating the book’s net proceeds to the restoration efforts.
Breaking Bread has classic and contemporary regional recipes. Most are simple, like bruschetta, prosciutto with melon, boiled potatoes with fresh parsley, vegetable soup with rice, and roasted chicken with rosemary and garlic; though there are some more time-consuming recipes, such as lasagna. The American’s site features recipes for pasta and lentils, grilled lamb chops, and pizzelle, a sort of Italian waffle cookie.
Marie Piccone, publisher of Telos, said she had not seen a significant bump in sales of the book yet, but that Breaking Bread’s Amazon ranking went from 250,000 before the site launched to 86,000 last week. And the increased visibility has helped booksellers get on board: the Rizzoli bookstore and New York City’s hot new Italian food destination Eataly are both now carrying the book.
