Marcella Hazan. 1992. Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN-10: 0307597954; ISBN-13: 9780307597953.
This is the first ‘international’ cookbook I bought, after a friend’s roommate recommended it. I love this book: it is the real basis of how I approach cooking.
Marcella Hazan taught Americans how to cook Italian food. She points out that Italian American cooking is its own cuisine, born of Italian immigrants making use of the ingredients they could get here, and they developed their own cuisine as a result. Most Americans probably conflate the two – and Marcella helped us see the differences and learn to appreciate both.
This book is a collection and revision of her first two cookbooks published in the 1970s, which took the USA by storm. Here she collects the top recipes, reworks them to make them clear and easier to follow, and added some new stuff, too. The best part of this book is the introduction: a hundred-page explanation of how to think about food like an old Italian woman. She also dismisses the idea of ‘authenticity’ as a chimera: you are not an old Italian woman, living in Italy, shopping at an Italian market and cooking Italian ingredients in an Italian kitchen. So dismiss the need to be authentic and embrace the approach that Italian coos take to their food and their cooking.
The book teaches us to be seasonal in our cooking, to focus on freshness, and to let the flavors of the ingredients shine. Marcella teaches us how to think about shopping, and how to flex your ideas about your cooking plan if you cannot find the ingredients you need – or if you see something great in the store or market, and decide to cook with that instead. I have taken this to heart and now I go to the store with a notion, but I let the produce tell me if there’s something amazing and fresh that begs me to cook that. It took a while to shake off the idea of planning then buying – but the openness to what’s good in the store is a huge help in making really good food.
The second point Marcella makes in the intro section is key: she tells us to read the recipe we will be cooking carefully, to prepare everything, and then to cook the recipe as written (or as closely as you can manage). And once you are comfortable with the recipe, and understand how the techniques and the ingredients should come together, you can make the recipe your own: maybe you like more garlic, or less; or you want some heat, or you don’t really like one of the ingredients but have an idea for a replacement….
So Marcella became my go-to for Italian recipes, and over time, I really took her approach to all of my cooking. I love this book for giving me that attitude, even more than the excellent recipes. I feel more comfortable in my kitchen, and I feel free to do things my way, once I am comfortable with a recipe.
We call Marcella Hazan Santa Marcella because she is our kitchen guardian. There’s a New Yorker cartoon (see the article at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/marcella-hazan-changed-my-life for a story about the cookbook’s impact, plus the cartoon) that has a kitchen with a shrine to Marcella in it rather than a saint or the Chinese Kitchen God (I have both in my kitchen, because I like having all the help I can get), and I totally support the idea.
Recipes that I have committed completely to memory from making them so many times: Chicken with two lemons, basic tomato sauce (three ingredients turned into flavor perfection by slow cooking, letting time do the magic), pork braised in milk, and ragu Bolognese. Each of these is pretty straightforward, and every one will blow your dinner guests away.
My copy is dog-eared, sauce-stained, and well-used. I have to admit it doesn’t come off the shelf as often anymore – because I have memorized all the stuff in it that I love. That’s a cookbook that can serve as the foundation for a whole lifetime’s worth of cooking, and enjoying, great food.
Mangiamo!