COOKBOOK WATCH

So many Italian cookbooks have been published in the last 10 years that it’s hard to believe there’s an Italian home cook, even in the remotest corner of Calabria, who hasn’t had her kitchen invaded and her recipe collection plundered to pad out some book. Do we really need another? Somehow, it seems, the answer is always “yes.”

Comparisons are inevitable between Anne Bianchi’s new “Italian Food Festivals” (Macmillan, $25) and Carol Field’s 1990 “Celebrating Italy,” now, sad to say, out of print. Both women are strong writers; Bianchi’s book is perhaps more personal. Both know Italy intimately; Bianchi runs a cooking school in Lucca.

The major difference between the two books seems to be how closely the respective authors have hewed to their stated subject. While Field restricted herself to festivals celebrating foods and at least tried to be fairly encyclopedic, Bianchi feels no such compulsion. Her regional scope is far more limited: Piedmont, Trentino-Alto Adige, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Sardinia, Campania, Puglia and Calabria. And her essays tend to celebrate a region’s character in general more than strictly its festivals. They also seem to be more reflective of modern Italy rather than of traditional folkways.

The bottom line? Thank goodness we can always build more bookshelves so we don’t have to choose.