When we stayed two weeks in Umbria this summer, our rental house (great kitchen!) came with a small supply of cookbooks. A couple of the books were by a woman named Marcella Hazan. I hadn't heard of her before but absolutely loved reading her cookbooks.
I would like to add a Marcella Hazan cookbook to my cookbook library. (I'm sure I look at my cookbooks much more than I actually use the recipes, but I do plan to cook more in my "new" lifestyle.)
Hi Kathy, I love "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" (the first one on the amazon list). It's a two-in-one book combining two of her earlier books. It's fun to read, very informative, and everything I've made has been fantastic.
Kathy, I really like Marcella Hazan. I only have one of her cookbooks - Marcella's Italian Kitchen - so I can't say which one of hers is the best. But since, as Annie says, "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" combines 2 books, that sounds like a good choice. I will say that the one I have has quite a bit of very good introductory matter about techniques and ingredients. This might be less important now-a-days when everyone knows so much about Italian cooking. But back when I first got the book when it first came out, it was new information for me and has influenced my cooking ever since.
And I'm with you, I look at my cookbooks probably way more than I actually use the recipes. But they're such great inspiration. They give you ideas on techniques that you can then use with whatever ingredients you have on hand. And they're just fun to read!
happy cooking, -Krista
Posts: 1694 | Location: Santa Barbara, California | Registered: 21 May 2004
Marcella is the Diva of Italian cuisine.. her books are great as she was a scientist...and lived in the states and had to figure out how to make her REAL Italian food work there.. the recipes are long because she explains it all!
I think you use a recipe once... and then twice and then it is yours and you don't use the book again. I still like recipe cards... or a book and write down MY recipes. It is a good idea to also write down where you got the inspiration, for when you need to really refresh your memory.
I purchased The Classic Italian Cookbook and More Classic Italian Cooking when I returned from 9 months in Rome in 1978. Since I was still in college, I'm sure they were my first cookbooks of any kind. They still are two of the best Italian cookboks I own (also love Lidia) and I use them regularly. So Essentials of Italian Cooking would also be my choice.
Thanks everyone! Looks like I will add "Essentials" to my cookbook library.
And Diva, I totally understand what you're saying about using recipes from a cookbook. For me a recipe also becomes a starting place... gives me ideas of what ingredients might go together and what the proportions might be, and then I can go from there... as you say, make it mine!
I agree = Excellent technique instructions. I would never have tried to prepare squid the first time, if not for her wonderful directions for cleaning them. Now they're a family staple.
and lived in the states and had to figure out how to make her REAL Italian food work there.. the recipes are long because she explains it all!
Marcella Hazan continues to live in Longboat Key, Florida where I see her smoking away at an outdoor table of a popular Italian restaurant. She is very critical of the culinary scene in this part of Florida (Sarasota). An opinion that I share.
A couple of years ago I listed many Regional cookbooks (with excellent editing by Pauline). I continue to think that Regional cookbooks should be essential resources for trip planning. I did not list Classic Italian Cookbook by Hazan only because it is not Region specific. Nevertheless, it is a wonderful cookbook and I am proud to say that mine is a first edition and is very well stained from a lot use. It is my favorite cookbook with Arthur Schwartz' Naples at Table a very close second.
I think Hazan has a Ph.d in Biology, was brought up in Emilia Romagna and lived for many years in Venice. Her son teaches Italian cooking in Sarasota, Florida.
Peter
Posts: 1375 | Location: Essex Fells, NJ and Longboat Key, Florida | Registered: 21 July 2002
It is " The Classic Italian Cookbook" to which I referred. I don't think it is the same as "Essentials" but I guess that many recipes in the "Classic" would be included. My wife gave me the Classic cookbook as a Christmas present in 1973.
I find this phrase from her introduction in the Classic very edifying: "The finest restaurants in Italy are not those glittering establishments known to every traveler, but the very small, family run trattorie of ten or twelve tables that offer home cooking only slightly revised by commercial adaptations". How true! One of my favorite restaurants in Italy has only five tables which is located in a small town south of Rome.
Peter
Posts: 1375 | Location: Essex Fells, NJ and Longboat Key, Florida | Registered: 21 July 2002
Kathy, I don't own that book, mainly because the measurements are different from here, but I did start out with her recipe for Pasta al Limone. I quickly found I had to alter it to get to what I remembered eating at "i Ricchi" when I fell in love with it. I wondered if the recipes were USianized? Almost all foreign foods are Italianized, after all. After eating my way through 5 years here, I realize that many of my favorite foods are not made in restaurants of any kind because they are impractical there. Also, like anywhere, fats and salt are increased to levels that sell better, but aren't healthy everyday. In cooking school, the chef chef always ended up saying, "And then there is l'americana, for whom all salt measurements are too much." OTH, one can learn a lot from restaurant cooks. I have recently been trying to get my spinach ai peperoncini to taste the way it does at Buongustaio, and it's good, but not like it. Bah! Boh! To me Judy Witts is the one and the only Diva. Hazan is merely very very good.
Marcella wrote her books for Americans. I think technique is the most important ingredient in cooking, using HEAT.. using it correctly can make food taste soooo much better! the right pans, knife skills, building your palate, tasting...is so much more important than recipes!
I had worked in a 5 star hotel in the states for 7 years, only 2 cooking and as a pastry chef.. I had my own little side job of a catering company... but had to relearn when I moved here.
Getting the best ingredients, makes cooking so much easier as you need to do less to them!
Sauces are to cover the ingredients that are of a lesser quality! What can you taste of your steak after A1 Sauce or BBQ sauce?
Also make a recipe more than once! REad through it first..and you can make smaller portions with the same ingredients..and tweek the flavors. Write in your books.. or keep a notebook handy and keep your versions!
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