When the niece of iconic Italian-American tinned food brand Chef Boyardee announced she was writing a cookbook, the food world treated the news with skepticism, suspicion and even a little disdain.
The brand is known, after all, less for the quality and nutritional content of its canned pastas and orange-colored tomato sauce, and more for its convenience and economic value. But early reviews of Anna Boiardi's book Delicious Memories: Recipes and Stories From the Chef Boyardee Family have ranged from lukewarm to "surprisingly pleasant" by food writers who generally harbor scorn for pre-packaged foods.
That's because the cookbook, published by Stewart, Tabori and Chang and released May 1, isn't based on the canned foods made famous by her great-uncle, Hector Boiardi, but on traditional family recipes from Italy.
Dishes like ravioli with ricotta and squash filling, apple cider rosemary roast chicken, and tortelli with butter and sage sauce.
The label, which is now owned by ConAgra Foods, is instantly recognizable for North Americans by photos of a mustachioed, Hector Boiardi who changed the spelling of his name to make it easier for Americans to pronounce. The brand is more than 80 years old. Anna, meanwhile, has continued the family's culinary tradition and runs Cucina Academy, a cooking school in New York.
Epicurious.com called the book "pleasantly surprising," mostly based on the absence of "a single trademarked ingredient," and food writer Josh Ozersky of Time magazine gave it a tepid endorsement, saying the book is filled with delicious but predictable Italian recipes.
Meanwhile, another strong, Italian-American matriarch from New York came out with a cookbook this week but her fame comes not from a long history of chef cooks, but from a reality TV show. Teresa Giudice of The Real Housewives of New Jersey launched her second cookbook Fabulicious! May 3, that features family recipes like meatballs and tiramisu. Delicious Memories retails for $18.95 and is available on amazon.com. The UK version releases May 26 for £11.99