Dickie is particularly adroit conjuring up many aspects of Italian culture (his Cosa Nostra was a nigh-definitive study of a less cherishable aspect of Italian culture) and here he combines scholarship and enthusiasm to great effect. Part of his agenda is to dispel the advertising industry perception that the vineyards and olive groves of Tuscany (with their sun-tanned, contented workers) represent the whole story of Italian food. Not the case, says Dickie, and it’s in the urban heart of the Italian city that the elements of the nation's cuisine are forged: the cookery talent, the all-important financing and even the ingredients. Control of all this, as the author notes, represents considerable power, and we are taken on historical journey throughout all of Italy, in the time and space: from mediaeval Milan to fascist Rome, from Renaissance Ferrara to 19th-century Naples. What makes this particularly involving is the fashion in which Dickie juggles his obvious scholarship with the sheer, undeniable pleasure this affords both him (and, concomitantly) us. Delizia may well transform every trip you take from now on to an Italian restaurant. --Barry Forshaw