Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library)

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Pellegrino Artusi ( pronounced [pelleˈɡriːno arˈtuːzi]; Forlimpopoli, near Forlì, August 4, 1820 – Florence, March 30, 1911) was an Italian businessman and writer, best known as the author of the 1891 cookbook La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene ("Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well"). [1] [2] Biography [ edit ] Soup is only as good as the Sofrito" this is not only true of soup but also of life. Select every ingredient with attention, prepare it with your soul, add some good music and you can be sure to have a dish that will not only fill you, it will also satisfy. Written just decades after the unification of Italy, the book (commonly referred to simply as Artusi) was the first to include recipes from all the regions of Italy, and may be considered to mark the birth of the national, as opposed to fragmented and regional, cuisine. It contains a great deal of historic interest as a record of humanity, medicine, economics and cuisine, and also a great many damned good recipes. "If Esau indeed sold his birthright for a plate of lentils, then it must be admitted that their use as food is ancient, and that Esau either had a great passion for them or suffered from Bulimia" The following year, the family moved to Florence. Here, Pellegrino began working in finances, and he also dedicated his time to two of his favorite hobbies: literature and the art of cooking. His sisters got married and his parents died and so he was able to live off his inheritance thanks to the land the family had in Romagna (in Borgo Pieve Sestina di Cesena and Sant'Andrea di Forlimpopoli). He bought a house in D'Azeglio Square in Florence, where he quietly lived out his life until 1911 when he died at age 90. Single, he lived with just a butler from his hometown and a Tuscan cook. He was buried in the Porte Sante cemetery, part of the basilica of San Miniato al Monte.

The complaints that the milk fed veal goes to the broth maker intrigues me no end. To think that the broth maker can prefer milk fed veal for his product really goes beyond choosing good ingredients for a good product!La Scienza in Cucina is more than just a cookbook. Pellegrino Artusi read widely, corresponded with the intellectuals of his day, and had something to say about just about everything. Almost half the recipes contain anecdotes or snippets of advice on subjects as varied as regional dialects and public health, and while cooks may open the book to find out how to make minestrone or a German cake, they northern Italy in the 1840s were like. While today his comments are merely interesting, at the turn of the century they undoubtedly provided the first glimpses of the outside world to many of his readers who lived in small towns and had neither the means nor the opportunity to travel.

Today, Artusi is considered one of the most important icons of Italian culture and he is a household name. His book is on the shelves of everyone's kitchen— it's the Joy of Cooking for Italians—but even more. The cookbook has a charming introduction entitled, “The story of a book that is a bit like the story of Cinderella.” And, indeed, the story behind his cookbook, a labor of love, is inspiring. The seventy-one-year-old Artusi, a businessman with an enormous passion for cooking, could not find anyone to publish his book. He decided to self-publish it, initially printing only 1000 copies. But before long, it was one of the books that every Italian household had a copy of, up there with Italian classics like I Promessi Sposi and Pinocchio. Artus's book stands with Manzon's great novel, " I Promessi Sposi "(The Betrothed), and the music of Verdi as works that not only are great unto themselves but represented a sense of identity and self-worth to a nascent country with no nationalistic feeling ... Artusi chose to give Italians their definition by telling them how they ate ... Anyone who seeks to know Italian food avoids Artusi at his or her peril. He is the fountainhead of modern Italian cookery.'--Fred Plotkin This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. It would be a poor desert island book - anything that made you think of food would be a burden - but one I might take along anyway, just for the asides and joyous anecdotes that give it personality. "Life has two principal functions: nourishment and the propagation of the species. Those who turn their attention to these two needs of existence make life less gloomy".Although Artusi was himself of the upper classes and it was doubtful he had ever touched a kitchen utensil or lit a fire under a pot, he wrote the book not for professional chefs, as was the nineteenth-century custom, but for middle-class family cooks: housewives and their domestic helpers. His tone is that of a friendly advisor – humorous and nonchalant. He indulges in witty anecdotes about many of the recipes, describing his experiences and the historical relevance of particular dishes. But it's his apricot jam that I will continue to make for the rest of my life. He himself says that it's the best one of them all. I like it so much that there's nothing I would do to change it. Some like to add lemon juice to their apricot jam, some add vanilla. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall even throws in some butter. But if you have delicious, sweet, ripe apricots to begin with (Artusi points out in this recipe that jam should be made with good fruit and that it is erroneous to think you can get the same results with second-rate fruit), then these are unnecessary. First published in 1891, Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangier bene has come to be recognized as the most significant Italian cookbook of modern times. It was reprinted thirteen times and had sold more than 52,000 copies in the years before Artusi's death in 1910, with the number of recipes growing from 475 to 790. And while this figure has not changed, the book has consistently remained in print. Bills should be short and tagliatelle long, since long bills terrify husbands and short tagliatelle looks like left overs"! Have you ever come across such a lovely sentence, have you ever received better advice? ounce (400-gram) tin borlotti beans, drained (or a handful of fresh borlotti beans, simmered until tender)