Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (10 page)

10
In 1908 Salani “retrenched” to the third edition, which featured a much reduced number of recipes. This edition, to which they had legal rights, was then reissued for a good number of years.

11
See
La scienza in cucina etc
., ed. Davide Paolini (Milan: Sperling & Kupfer Editori, 1991). The title page informs us that this “most famous cookbook” has been “revisited by five great chefs: Gianfranco Bolognesi, Arrigo Cipriani, Gualtiero Marchesi, Fulvio Pierangelini, Gianfranco Vissani.” That same year, under the auspices of the Comitato Segavecchia (a club, in Forlimpopoli, created to preserve a folklore tradition that dates back to 1547), the Association of Chefs from Emilia-Romagna celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the book by “slimming down” Artusian recipes and reformulating Artusian menus. See
L’Artusi cent’anni dopo
(Artusi, one hundred years later) (Bertinoro: Tipolitografia Ge. Graf, 1991). Prior to these centennial “reformulations,” in 1962 Luigi Volpicelli had authored a much quoted preface to a luxury edition of
Scienza in cucina
, featuring a valuable “panorama della cucina italiana nei secoli” (panorama of Italian cooking through the centuries), while in 1968 a dietetically conscientious Irene Bosco brought forth a “selected and reduced”
Nuovo Artusi
.

12
An anthropologist and literary historian, Piero Camporesi (Forli, 1926-Bologna, 1997) taught Italian literature and cultural history at the University of Bologna. In the early 1960s he published the vernacular writings of Giulio Cesare Croce, a sixteenth-century Bolognese author. This was a prelude to a series of original studies dealing with topics such as blood, milk, sex, hunger, and the Italian landscape. Some of his titles are
La came impassibile
(1986),
La via del latte
(1993), and
Le belle contrade
(1995).

13
It is also sprinkled with the witty prefatory remarks of the prominent writer/painter Emilio Tadini.

14
The complete text, penned for the exhibition of Delia Casa’s watercolors at the Biblioteca civica Luigi Poletti in Modena (March-June 2002), is now available at:
http://www.comune.modena.it/bibliotecbe/artusi/artusi
.

15
Issued by Marsilio Publishers in 1997. Prior American editions of
Science in
the Kitchen
are plagued with grave faults. Some are abridged, and many have simply misunderstood the original (Artusi, who was not a Tuscan, chose to flavor his Italian with expressions from that a true Tuscan would have perhaps avoided, ultimately complicating a translator’s task). Worst of all, they have not paid due attention to the things that make this book exceptional: anecdotes, literary references, personal reminiscences. In editing out most of these jewels, they have, regrettably, transformed a classic into a poorly translated cookbook. Needless to say, ours is not a perfect edition either. We apologize for any mistakes on our part, and would be very grateful to any readers who can bring them to our attention. In the true spirit of Artusi, we will incorporate plausible suggestions in all future editions.

16
Piero Camporesi, introduction to
La scienza in cucina e l’ arte di mangiar bene
(Turin: Einaudi, 1970), lix.

17
See
La cucina italiana:
www.emmeti.it/Food/Toscana/Storia/Firenze7.it.html
.

18
In his
Storia linguistica dell’ Italia unita
(Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1970), Tullio De Mauro writes that in 1861 a meager 2.5 percent of the Italian population could read and write standard Italian. Although this figure increased dramatically in the following decades – thanks, primarily, to the enforcement of compulsory (elementary) education – results were not as encouraging as they could have been. Writing in 1910, Camillo Corradini, reported that the structure for the dissemination of literacy resembled more closely that of a chain for the distribution of “luxury items,” depending as it did on the revenues of individual municipal administration that were, by and large, indirectly proportional to the seriousness of the problem. See, in particular, De Mauro,
Storia linguistica
, 92–5.

19
”For many … this book represented the only reading of their lives, the singular excursion in the garden of science and literature, the unique and tentative contact with that which burns beyond the oven in the great universe of knowledge” Camporesi, introduction to
La scienza in cucina
, lv.

20
See, Folco Portinari, “Artusi,” in Pollarini, ed.
Cucina bricconcella
, 100.

21
See p. 386 below.

22
The Betrothed
, trans. Bruce Penman (London: Penguin Books, 1972), 26.

23
The recipe for
Bue alia California
(beef California style; recipe 300), is not, however, an indication of origin: “Whoever concocted this dish,” writes Artusi, “probably did not know what to call it, so he gave it this strange name. But for that matter, almost all culinary terms are either strange or ridiculous” (p. 230).

24
See p. 215. The active presence of
pie
, at the root of
paio
, should not go unnoted. It may give us a hint of the Anglo-Tuscan language spoken in Florence in the late nineteenth century.

25
A critical edition of Machiavelli’s text has been published by Ornella Castellani Polidori in her
Niccolò Machiavelli e il “Dialogo intorno alia nostra lingua
” (Florence: Olschky, 1978). The passage quoted here is on page 243. Some scholars, first among them Pio Rajna in 1893, have doubted the paternity of this essay. Their arguments are carefully summarized by Castellani Polidori in the first chapter of the book (13–29).

26
Guerrini was also a librarian and a gastronomer in his own right. As a poet, he wrote under the pseudonym Lorenzo Stecchetti. “Artusi’s legacy was not lost on a learned countryman of his. Capricious to the point of eccentricity, [Guerrini] was indeed Artusi’s kindred spirit, and his personal friend. In a time when everyone could feel the
economic hardship of the First World War … Olindo Guerrini fashioned a work that could also be read as a completion of Artusi.
L’arte di utilizzare gli avanzi della mensa
(The art of using table leftovers) covers average to below-average, middle-class, economical, and frugal cuisine. Much attention is paid to techniques for savings, which, certainly not overlooked by Artusi, found in Stecchetti’s pages their most suitable dwelling.” See Camporesi, introduction, lxi-lxii.

27
Massimo Montanari, “Leggere il cibo: un viaggio nella letteratura gastronomica” (How to read food: a journey through gastronomic literature,” in
La cucina bricconcella
, 23.

28
Chicago: W.M. Hill, 1941.

29
Montanari, “Leggere il cibo,” 28.

30
It may not be possible, here, to invoke the “philosophical” lesson of Plàtina (and Maestro Martino), whose food-related permissible pleasure
{honesta voluptas)
, obfuscating the notion of sin that was inherent in the activity of eating well or for reasons not strictly connected with one’s own sustenance, goes hand in hand with the idea of dining for the sake of being with friends and kindred spirits. Nevertheless it is in that cultural environment that the notion of “dinner party” takes shape. In Martino’s manual, next to the measurements (a great novelty in and of themselves), the cook always indicates the number of people (varying from 8 to 12) for whom a given recipe has been conceived.

31
Camporesi, introduction, xliv-xlvi. He writes: “Artusi used multiple and often times unpredictable sources. The formulas and titles were often modified, revised or changed by the author. As a result they blossomed once again thanks to the skillful manipulation of the author who exhorted his readers not to trust ‘the books that deal with the subject’ because ‘they are for the most part fallacious or incomprehensible, especially the Italian books.’ But Artusi, a man of letters, had read and studied them during the long years of his seemingly interminable life.”

32
See below, p.
69
. Emphasis added.

33
See below, p. 251. For Artusi, the lightness of food was a constant concern. A year before his demise, he added the appendix “Foods for Weak Stomachs” to the text of the fourteenth edition.

34
In 1809, in Milan, probably under the “democratic” influence of the French Revolution exported to Italy by Napoleon Bonaparte, the amphibious
Il cuoco moderno ridotto a perfezione secondo il gusto francese e italiano
(A modern cook elevated to perfection in accordance with Italian and French tastes) saw the light. The author, identified only as L.O.G., is unknown.

35
Montanari, “Leggere il cibo,” 30.

36
Among others:
La cuciniera piemontese
(The Piedmontese female chef; Vercelli, 1771);
La cuoca cremonese
(The Cremonese female cook; Cremona, 1794); Antonio Nebbia’s
Il cuoco maceratese
(The cook from Macerata; Macerata, 1781); Ippolito Cavalcanti’s
La cucina teorico-pratica
(Theoretical-practical cooking; Naples, 1837, with an appendix written in Neapolitan dialect); Giambattista Ratto’s
La cuciniera genovese (The Genoan female chef;
Genoa, 1867), etc.

37
Leonardi was possibly the first chef who thought of seasoning pasta with tomato sauce. He was once employed by Catherine II of Russia, and was “fluent” in Polish, Turkish, French, and German gastronomy as well.

38
See recipe 678, p. 490 below. Giancarlo Roversi (”Pellegrino Artusi a Bologna”, in
Cucina bricconcella
, 135–7) emphasizes the familiarity Artusi must have had with such Bolognese annual publications as
La serva ammaestrata dal cuoco piemontese
(A maidservant trained by the Piedmontese cook) and
La cuciniera
(The female cook), aimed explicitly at teaching housekeepers and domestic cooks how to please their masters and mistresses “and to avoid extravagant expenses.”

39
See p. 510 below; emphasis in original. Artusi is jovial and patient most but not all of the time. He can even be rather curt, as he undoubtedly is in the opening lines of his recipe for
ciambelline
(little rings; recipe 190): “This dish, too, is difficult to make well if you have not seen it prepared. I will try to describe it, but I cannot guarantee you will understand me” (p. 162).

40
In a pamphlet, published in Florence in 1972, celebrating Artusi’s gastronomic importance, and appropriately entitled “Il re dei cuochi” (The king of cooks), author Giovanni Celati transcribes, directly from
Scienza in cucina
, a parody Olindo Guerrini made of a recipe by Giovanni Vialardi, whose
Trattato di cucina, pasticceria moderna, credenza e relativa confetteria
(Treatise on cooking, modern pastries, buffets, and appropriate desserts; Turin, 1854), he regarded as a supreme example of the pompous style that blemished so many cookbooks of the time, and next to which Artusi’s prose must have seemed a veritable antidote.

41
See pp. 65–6 below.

42
See pp. 107–8 below.

43
See his
Profilo di Pellegrino Artusi
(Forlimpopoli: Cassa Rurale e Artigiana, 1990), 39. To the endearing formal traits that characterize many of his recipes, we should add the “lighter touch” Artusi exhibited in the description of actual, often brutal, culinary actions. In the words of Piero Camporesi, “drawing upon an
humeur culinaire
unknown to professional cooks …, [Artusi allayed] the most intimidating aspects inherent in culinary operations. Naturally he could not abolish them completely because they are an integral part of this ‘science’ that falls back daily into an unredeemable orignal sin.” Camporesi, introduction, lxi.

44
See p. 299 below.

45
See p. 379 below; emphasis added.

46
”Scientific” digressions take prevalence over purely culinary instructions in the turkey, duck, and guinea hen related recipes. Artusi was perhaps satisfied with his expostulations about chicken and capon and in all likelihood felt that his readers could draw from there the guidance they would need to cook those birds.

47
According to the rather convincing computations of Giancarlo Roversi (cit., pp. 125–8), and not in 1850 as stated by Artusi himself in the fourteenth edition of
Scienza in cucina
.

48
Listed by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli in his
Gioco delle osterie
printed in 1712 and highly recommended by Claude Pasquin, the director of the Royal Library of Versailles, who visited in Bologna in 1826 and wrote about it in
L’ltalie confortable
(printed 1842): a book that, writes Roversi (132), “could nor have escaped the attention of that devourer of books that was Artusi.”

49
See p. 186 below.

50
The recipe for
budino di farina di riso
(rice flour pudding) includes a dissertation on medieval delicacies that required colouring roasted peacock with a dark red clay, the description of a very bad meal inflicted on Messer Goro (courtier to Pope Pius
II) by a totally incompetent cook, a quotation from Homer, and the recipe itself. See pp. 473–6 below.

51
He was educated in Paris.

52
”When you hear someone speak of Bolognese cooking, salute it, because this cooking deserves it. It is somewhat heavy perhaps because the climate requires it, but it also succulent, tasty and healthy. This may explain why in Bologna a life span of 80 or 90 is more common than elsewhere” (p. 40 below). It is in Bologna, furthermore, that Artusi dreamed of founding an institute “to train young women to be cooks, for they are naturally more economical and less wasteful than men. These women would then be easy to employ, and would possess an art which, when brought into middleclass households, would serve as a medecine against the frequent quarrels that occur in families as a result of bad dining” (p. 42). All this, and more, in the recipe for
tortellini alla Bolognese
(tortellini Bolognese style; recipe 9).