Jeff Smith fell in love with Italy as a college student. And in the course of nearly three hundred and twenty televised cooking shows and nine cookbooks, he has given us many Italian recipes. In one of them, The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines, a whole section described the cooking of Rome. But this is the first time he has devoted a single volume to a country where food has been a sustaining passion and is taken as seriously as religion, art, and politics. Companion to a brand-new two-year 40-part Public Television series of the same name, The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian shows us how Italians really prepare and enjoy their cuisines. That's right, cuisines. For in Italy, the Frug tells us, recipes vary from house to house, from town to town. In his fabulous new cookbook, Jeff tells us how Florentine sausages differ from those found in Naples, how Northern Italy has turned the mushroom into an icon, how sandwiches change their shape from city to city. He even shows us how the roots of Italian cooking have flourished when transplanted to the soil of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. Packed with more than 350 recipes encompassing every course, from a scrumptious antipasto of Carpaccio with Lemon Olive Oil Mustard Sauce to a not-to-be-missed Tiramisu, this is the cookbook we've all been waiting for - here just in time to satisfy our hunger for the regional food of Italy. In these pages you'll discover: an unusual pasta soup made with a spaetzle press; the marriage of two great Italian specialties in artichokes stuffed with caponata, the Sicilian eggplant relish; more than a dozen recipes for polenta, the delicious and versatile cornmeal dish, an Italian staple whose charmsare unknown to many Americans; an elegant seafood risotto, both light and hearty; and scores of vegetable recipes - like Asparagus Milanese and a spectacular dish of Fried Radicchio Filled with Cheese. There are also dozens of splendid new pasta recipes, including a stunning vers