Composing an Italian Menu

In simpler times, planning a menu did not require hard thought. Each season had its products, and cooks had a modest stock of reassuringly familiar recipes that could be arranged to suit most circumstances: a casual dinner for friends or a fancy one for important guests; a celebration; the everyday family meal, when it was still the custom to produce one.

Today, in the market, it appears to be spring and summer all year long. Moreover, there is such an abundance of recipes available to Americans, most of them derived from other heritages, that picking one’s way among them is like sorting out the many and tangled strands of a thick skein. The trick is to find the principal thread, the one that, as it unwinds, shakes free all the others.