This book was picked by the Morristown Festival of Books 2015 as its One Community, One Book (OCOB). Book clubs and readers from the Somerset Hills and Morristown area were invited to read and discuss the book in their book clubs as part of a large community reading program.
The OCOB program initially began in 1998 in the Washington Center for the Book of the Seattle Public Library. The program was created by Nancy Pearl and titled “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book.” Pearl took the book club concept and broadened the readership to encompass all of Seattle.
The OCOB program is now in libraries, colleges, bookstores and cultural centers throughout North America, Australia and Europe.
The OCOB pick is specifically chosen to appeal to a diverse readership, and “The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken,” does have that appeal.
The author, Laura Schenone, sets out to reclaim the lost Genoese ravioli recipe her great grandmother brought from Italy. Schenone enjoys cooking, but it’s the historical and sociological context of the food that really interests her. She’s like a food anthropologist digging into a certain dish until she knows where it originated, by whom and every other aspect she can find.
When Schenone sets out to make her great grandmother’s Christmas ravioli she sees it’s made with cream cheese. Immediately she knows that something’s wrong. Italy didn’t have cream cheese at the turn of the century. Schenone began a long search for the “authentic dish,” beginning with family members, then moving to distant relatives that had moved away. She eventually went back to where the recipe originated – Italy.
With each new insight Schenone gets a tiny nugget of the puzzle. She reunites with aunts and cousins and finds help from strangers in faraway places.
The quest is made more interesting to “non-cooks” because of the family aspects of the story. We follow Schenone as she uncovers morsels of lost family stories and her family’s travels from Italy to Hoboken.
There are family feuds and lost opportunities and a simmering of father – daughter tension.
Our book club attended another book club’s meeting for this OCOB pick. Most of the attendees enjoyed the book. There were a few who didn’t. The discussion was centered on family and rolling pins (you have to read the book to understand this). We can all relate to family and all its wonder and uncertainty.
The author will talk and sign books at the Festival on Oct. 3rd (see http://www.morristownbooks.org/ for the complete schedule of events).
Rating: 7