Books by Cooks: Amarcord

I came across a copy of Marcella Hazan's autobiography, Amarcord, several months ago at the library bookstore and bought it on a whim. I finally pulled it out of the cookbook section of my bookshelves where it had been languishing. I really didn't know much about Marcella, beyond general sense that she was perhaps the italian culinary equivalent of Julia Child. All I know is that I have been trying to get my hot little hands on a copy of her magnum opus, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, for some time now to no avail. I did, however, recently find a copy of one of her earlier cookbooks, The Classic Italian Cookbook, which was buried in a pile of bargain books at the used book store. I snatched it up for the steal of $2 and gave it a prominent place in my cookbook collection.

So far, I especially enjoyed her description of her first encounter with American food. While humorous, her grief over her inability to connect with or understand American cooking is clear.

Victor had taken me to a coffee shop where he ordered what he called the national dish, hamburger. He poured some red sauce from a bottle over it and encouraged me to try it. "It's called ketchup," he said, "and it's tasty." I was not prepared for its cloying flavor and I found it inedible. (That sweet taste over meat was an experience that I would be subjected to again, bringing me grief at my first Thanksgiving dinner.) The coffee tasted as though I had been served the water used to clean out the pot. I thought to console myself with dessert. I was able to figure out what the words "coffee cake" on the board meant, and that was what I ordered. It was stupefyingly sweet and loaded with cinnamon, which I loathe, yet with not the slightest trace of coffee flavor. "This must be a mistake," I said to Victor, "there isn't any coffee in here." "Oh, it's only called a coffee cake because it is served with coffee." To this day, I am mystified. A chocolate cake has chocolate, an almond tart has almonds, an apple pie has apples; why doesn't a coffee cake have coffee?

In comparison to her struggles trying to find comfort and familiarity in the foreign and often alienating supermarkets of New York, when she returns to Italy she quickly falls into a natural rhythm when it comes to her cooking. With her return to her homeland she finally finds comfort and confidence, cooking intuitively, seasonally, and joyfully.

My cooking was very simple, usually guided by the vegetables that looked best to me that day. We might have pasta with zucchini or fresh tomatoes or cauliflower, or a frittata with asparagus or green beans or peppers and onion, sausages with fresh borlotti beans, veal stew with foraged mushrooms, or my mother's veal roll-ups, of which Victor was so fond. From a trip to the fish market, I might have brought back sgombero, small mackerel that I cooked over the stove like a pan roast, in olive oil, garlic, and rosemary. Or a kilo or more of our tiny Adriatic clams, peppery and soft like butter, a small mountain of them sauteed with lots of olive oil, garlic, and parsley, which we would eat with nearly their weight in marvelous crusty bread, sopping up their juices. Those noontimes together at home gave us such strength and encouragement.

Great, now I want to move to Italy.