This is not a cookbook. This is something more: a travelogue, a patient investigation of Italy's cuisine, a loving profile of the everyday heroes who bring Italy to the table. Pasta, Pane, Vino is the latest edition of the genre-bending Roads & Kingdoms style pioneered under Anthony Bourdain's imprint in Rice, Noodle, Fish and Grape, Olive, Pig.

Town by town, bite by bite, author Matt Goulding brings Italy to life through intimate portraits of its food culture and the people pushing it in new directions: Three globe-trotting brothers who became the mozzarella kings of Puglia; the pizza police of Naples and the innovative pies that stay one step ahead of the rules; the Barolo Boys who turned the hilly Piedmont into one of the world's great wine regions.

From the pasta temples of Rome to the multicultural markets of Sicily to the family-run, fish-driven trattorias of Lake Como, Pasta, Pane, Vino captures the breathtaking diversity of Italian regional food culture.