Paying tribute to Marcella Hazan

We’ve been reading the tributes to Marcella Hazan that have been published since she passed away yesterday and were struck by some fascinating items about this preeminent teacher of Italian cuisine.

First and foremost, she was as much a teacher as a chef – one of the most effective in preaching and spreading the gospel of authentic Italian cuisine. As the NY Times noted in their obituary, Changed the Way Americans Cook Italian Food, “The impact Mrs. Hazan had on the way America cooks Italian food is impossible to overstate. Even people who have never heard of Marcella Hazan cook and shop differently because of her, and the six cookbooks she wrote, starting in 1973 with “The Classic Italian Cook Book: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating.”

But she didn’t just impact Americans. Matthew Fort has a wonderful tribute to her in The Guardian. He echoes several common themes: her somewhat brusque manner, her insistence on authenticity and simplicity, her slight preference for her own native northern Italian cooking, and goes on to note: “But in her insistence on correct procedure, on doing things a certain way and making clear the connection between the process and the result, she presents the true and unequivocal spirit of Italian cooking.”

And, in the Eater, they produced several comments from her peers on her passing – none better than that from Mario Batalli, “I didn’t pay attention to Julia Child like everyone else said they did…I paid attention to Marcella Hazan.”

And here are some other interesting facts about her:

• She only wrote 6 cookbooks (1973 to 2004)- somehow it seemed like more.
• She wrote the cookbooks in Italian – she couldn’t write in English – and her husband translated them.
• She had no formal training in cooking – but  had a doctorate in natural sciences and biology from the University of Ferrara.
• From a childhood accident, she had a crippled right arm, but could still hold a knife.

We’ll take the last word here, and just say “Molte grazie” for the following:

• The Classic Italian Cookbook: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating
• More Classic Italian Cooking
• Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (a combined volume of her first two books)
• Marcella Cucina
• Marcella’s Italian Kitchen
• Marcella Says
• Amarcord (her memoirs)

Photo courtesy of The Eater