Here’s another excerpt from my book in progress, tentatively titled The Making of an Italian Cook.
Marcella and Me
My University Place apartment replaced our Long Island kitchen as the hub of my self-imposed cooking self-school. My new kitchen was a narrow sliver, but with one of those deep double porcelain sinks, which I loved for its old New York beauty. Aside from that I had my Royal Rose tenement-issue stove, which really was beyond the pale (when I moved into the place, in the late ’70s, the previous tenant had actually left a cooked steak in the broiler (he must have been in a hurry), which I discovered after trying to track down what I assumed was a dead mouse slowly dissolving under a floorboard. I could barely turn around in the small cooking space, but that was okay. I used my “dining room” table as a prep station and made out pretty well (God, I even ran a catering business from that apartment for a while, years later). I had a good set of cast iron skillets and a serious Wusthof knife set, complete with a blue canvas knife roll, that my father had bought me for a moving-in gift, one of the most opulent presents I’ve ever received.
Now instead of hanging out at bars with Larry Rivers, my main evening activity became, for a few months at any rate, making meatballs. I had watched Mo, my mother, make the things a zillion times, so I didn’t think I needed a recipe. Her side of the family is Sicilian, and she often made her father’s raisin and pine nut meatballs, which I just loved. So I was baffled that my first half dozen tries came out so miserably. They were hard and dry and just made me sad. What I didn’t realize, until I put some serious thought into the matter, was that the more compact the meat, the denser the meatball would be. Finally I got it. Don’t keep smacking them around, stop squeezing them so much, quit working the life out of the mix. Okay, good. Problem solved. But when I told Mo that I’d replaced her milk-soaked soft bread with dried breadcrumbs, she looked at me with a blend of amazement and disgust and, if I recall correctly, said, “Are you nuts?” What did I know? As it turned out, dried bread yields dry meatballs. I finally came up with very good meatballs, but in the process I realized that purchasing a few good cookbooks was in order.
The first book I bought was The Classic Italian Cookbook, by Marcella Hazan. It had been out for about five years, she was now famous, and everyone seemed to love her. How could I go wrong? But I did go wrong. I’ve thought long about this and have come to realize that Marcella Hazan and I, despite how lovely and truly interesting her recipes were, we, as people who cooked, were just not a good match. Our personalities clashed like crazy, from her pages to my soul. It was like going out on a date with someone you just knew from the start wasn’t your type, but you kept going back for more, hoping something would click.
I felt as if her recipes were dangling in space—and at times crashing down on my head like some outside grinding noise you hear but can’t trace the source of (hidden electrical wires? that traffic counting device on the corner?), the kind of noise that can be familiar but still upsetting. Why on earth was this so? I at first concluded that since Marcella didn’t write, or evidently speak, English well, and her husband translated most of her words, he, Victor, was standing between us. There was for me an impenetrable sternness in the pages, and he, after all, is a wine writer and therefore more of an academic than an artist. I believed at the time, back in the late ’70s, that his tone must have covered up some of Marcella’s free spirit. But I don’t know either of them, so I can’t attest to their personalities. It was just a hunch. And the more I delved into the book, the more I began to believe that she was as much to blame. (Later, when I learned she had been a chemistry major, I was almost sure of it.)
I was looking for a coaxing voice and a compelling story. As wonderful as her recipes sounded, I couldn’t find a way in. I wanted a vulnerability, a jiggle, an oops-a-braciole-just-rolled-under-the-counter-but-I’ll-serve-it-anyway spirit. I couldn’t find it. I wanted to know how her soul made her want to cook. I snooped as much as possible, trying to read between the lines, but with out much luck, so I finally decided to page through the book and just make every recipe she had that included anchovies. That was a plan.
Marcella Hazan does seem to admire anchovies. I made her orecchiette with broccoli and anchovy sauce, which looked like something my grandmother would have come up with, and it tasted great. I loved her roasted peppers with anchovies. My family made roasted peppers and always served anchovies, but to my recollection they never blended them together. I understood that my selected use of this big book had its limits, and that I was being unfair and ignorant, but I couldn’t help myself. Then my relationship with Marcella went from bad to worse.
This was, I believe, 1978, a year when vitello tonnato was raging in the suburbs. My mother made it a few times, and I went wild for it. It was the party dish supreme, replacing cheese fondue in many a Long Island mom’s repertoire, an expected cocktail hour offering on our block. My mother’s recipe for vitello tonnato, like much of her cooking that was not Southern Italian, came from Gourmet magazine.
In my crypt-like Manhattan apartment, I decided that was what I had to make, being the party girl I still was. I could cook it and invite a bunch of friends and have a hip little dinner. Plus the recipe contained anchovies, so I could continue with my theme approach to cooking with Marcella. So I checked the index, and there it was on page 276. It looked good, if possibly a bit expensive. Now, you have to understand that going out and purchasing a boneless veal roast at this time in my life was a bold decision. I was averaging around $40 or $50 in my bank account, whatever I could put away from my not so lucrative job as information phone gal at the Barnes & Noble store on 18th Street (this was of course pre-computer, so every time a customer called about a book, I’d have to physically run through the store and pull it off the shelf—boy, what an exhausting bore). At any rate, I trotted over to Ottomanelli and bought my two-or-so-pound roast with high hopes. I invited a few friends and told them to bring white wine (Soave Bolla, of course). I followed Marcella Hazan’s recipe exactly, expecting the result to taste as enticing as what my mother had made, but what I came out with was a big, sloppy mound of fishy cat food, with peculiar metallic and acidic undertones.
The veal itself, I realized, wasn’t the problem. That simmered up fairly well (low and slow were the instructions, and that worked), but after purchasing the veal, I had had no money left for the fancy Italian tuna I’d grown up eating and instead had bought cheap American tuna packed in who knows what, and a bottle of “olive oil” that most likely I could just as well have purchased at a hardware store. My friend Scott was the only person who liked the dish, and I could tell he wasn’t just being kind, but then he was a person who had spent two weeks in Paris eating every meal at McDonald’s. For me it was such a disappointment, I actually cried, a long, sloppy wine-drunk cry. I sensed that my low-grade purchases were the problem, but I blamed Marcella anyway.
God damn it, why wasn’t this woman helping me more? Why couldn’t I taste and see what I was doing? I started to feel culinarily demented. I made perfectly decent, even good Italian food, in my mother’s kitchen and with no book or guidance except my nose, hands, and memory. Was it Marcella’s lack of Southern hospitality? I decided that must be the case. I was stuck in a rut. I briefly shut down my studies and let a dark shadow fall over my sharp Wusthof knives. But not for long.
Erica De Mane 
my dear, i think that the immigrant italian cooking that you & i grew up w/ is giant steps, no!…planets away from the “alta cucina” that marcella represents. IMO, our mammas & our nonnas were most likely money challenged & therefore, made simple, hearty, savory but thrifty dishes. very few, if any, immigrants came to america w/ a huge bank acct. love your blog & your essays. blessings, zingara
E:
I think this is just wonderful and I will stay tuned for the rest.
This is as good as Nora Ephron’s best. Very funny. Great work.
-michael
PS – I would kill someone right now for braciole ( it’s “Bra-jolee,” right?) AND a damn meatball. Seriously…one, good meatball and donate my carcass to science. Did I ever tell you my Carmella stories? I think you’d like them.
I love this.I really felt sorry for you.What most of us need when learning is a sympathetic ear,something you could not find with her.Good thing you didn’t get discouraged and leave it behind.Dust yourself off and try it again is always corny but the right advice.I should know.
Keeper of the BBs
Thanks Michael.
Yes!
I found it astonishing that her books, and Julia Childs books, never carried photography. After all, these ladies were teaching us a new way of cooking and plating. Could we possibly get a few hints as to what the stuff should look like? I always trolled through my Gourmets to find similar recipes, with photos! before beginning one of these marathons.
Love your voice!
Loved this essay. Someone should write a book about expensive cookbook disasters!
As usual, so evocative and rich. New York and food and that apt!! It’s raining here in Chicago and you made me kinda crazy to get cozy and cook. Really nice and looking so forward to reading it all.
Great photo.
This is an interesting topic – with all the thousands of cookbooks out there, it only makes sense that there could only be a few that click with each person. This also reminds me of the time when I was trying to cook a saddle of lamb recipe I found in a cookbook written by some French Countess. When I asked the butcher for the cut of meat that the book specified, he said, “Who the fuck told you to buy that, the Queen of England? Do you know that’s $85?” (And that was 1994). Thankfully, he gave me something else that worked out fine.
Barbara,
That photo was taken at the Campidoglio, against one of its crumbling walls, I think about 1984.
Polly,
It’s true. And don’t all those illustrations now look so farty, not to mention unhelpful? Remember the Jacques Pepin technique books, with all the step by step photos? Those I found helpful.
I don’t know a bracciole from a hole in the wall (really, I don’t), but I loved this. So relaxed, so conversational and funny, yet with a bit of an edge. Just perfect.
Interesting take…makes me think of Marcella’s relationship to Italian cooking as Wynton Marsalis’ relationship to jazz. A curator!
But i still go back to her early books though: i remember using them as kind of an encyclopedia of techniques and ingredients that I hadn’t yet tried. I think I probably gave them gave them a little Southern flavor! Her later books have quite a range of recipes without that stuffiness that pervades the early ones. But if you need a generic “Northern” Italian “Joy of Cooking” where else except to those early tomes do you turn as a start?
I loved the story of the dry meatballs.
My father, tho he never cooked, told me about the soft part of the bread soaked in milk for meatballs. He said it was called “mollica”, which was our name. I’m not sure I believed him. Who’d want to be named after mushy breadcrumbs.
Peter,
It’s true mollica is exactly that. I think it’s a great name.
George,
Julia Child was a curator too, but I loved her. I guess it’s a matter of attitude. I always need something sensual to draw me in.
The Julia/Marcella duo is a good match. But what’s the real difference? Maybe Julia really WAS a curator of a codified french cuisine and ,made it accessible to a new generation of American cooks while Marcella really had to codify a diverse northern cuisine, and maybe cater it (not really too much so!) for American and Italo-American tastes. Here’s (maybe) a telling difference: i rarely look at my old Marcella books, but I often realize I’m doing a riff on an old recipe or technique that i first tried there. Julia….I just look up the recipe!
George, I think that’s because you’re Italian and that’s the food dear to your heart.
Thanks for another vignette from your book in progress. I’ve been anxiously waiting since that bar scene with the glutton. On second thought I’m not sure if thanks are appropriate, since you have now whetted my appetite for more…I can only hope another installment will follow soon.
Brava to have the balls (meat balls of course) to stand up to Marcella ! For Christmas one year an academic ex-beau offered me, yet again much to my horror, another book. You guessed it, Marcella. It was her “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I must say I was intrigued. I come from a rather wild italian american family myself, and I found Marcella’s poise and precision an intriguing contrast to my on the fly way of cooking. I actually followed recipes to the letter for a change. I learned a lot and referred constantly to her patrician instructions. As the years went on, while I still appreciate her calm and reliable recipes, I have veered considerably from that style in my own cooking. Thanks in part to you, my friend, I like to liven things up with bursts of bold tasting ingredients, tapping back into my improvisational nature. Having had the pleasure to dine at your table several times, I can see that Marcella’s way is not the way of your heart. And this is a fortunate thing, since you clearly bring to the table something that is resolutely your own rendition of the lovely offerings of your local Union Square Market and other great NYC purveyors. For this gift I, and many others, can’t wait for your next book ! and dare I add, dinner invitation !
Great excerpt, Erica! When do we get to hear about what cleared the Wusthof shadow?
Marieta,
I certainly hope you’ll be making your way back to NYC for the Christmas season for as you know, I love having you at my rickety table.
E
Matt,
Soon. Restaurant stints to follow, I think. Not exactly sure, but something soon.
[…] #split {}#single {}#splitalign {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}#singlealign {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}#splittitlebox {text-align: center;}#singletitlebox {text-align: center;}.linkboxtext {line-height: 1.4em;}.linkboxcontainer {padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px;background-color:#eeeeee;border-color:#000000;border-width:0px; border-style:solid;}.linkboxdisplay {padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px;}.linkboxdisplay td {text-align: center;}.linkboxdisplay a:link {text-decoration: none;}.linkboxdisplay a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} function opensplitdropdown() { document.getElementById('splittablelinks').style.display = ''; document.getElementById('splitmouse').style.display = 'none'; var titleincell = document.getElementById('titleincell').value; if (titleincell == 'yes') {document.getElementById('splittitletext').style.display = 'none';} } function closesplitdropdown() { document.getElementById('splittablelinks').style.display = 'none'; document.getElementById('splitmouse').style.display = ''; var titleincell = document.getElementById('titleincell').value; if (titleincell == 'yes') {document.getElementById('splittitletext').style.display = '';} } Woodbridge, CT TV mounted over fireplace all wires hiddenHidden wiresTracing hidden wiresReview: Sonic GenerationsThe ‘upending of expectations’ and ‘The Exorcist’ (for realz) gives us chills!The ‘upending of expectations’ and ‘The Exorcist’ (for realz) gives us chills!Marcella and Me […]
Re Marcella & Julia as curators
First, let me note that my wife learned to cook Italian from Marcella’s “Classic Italian Cooking” & “More Classic … .” Then she moved to Milano where she ate many of the same dishes & cooked Marcella’s Milanese recipes for her friends who were amazed that she was such a master of Milanese cooking.
Let me recommend two books that are perfect codas to their earlier “curatorial” offerings: Marcella’s “Marcella Says …” and Julia’s “The Way to Cook.” The are late-in-life books about the relaxed way American food lovers cook. To anyone who aspires to learn basic French and Italian strategies for cooking in American kitchens with American ingredients, these two books are inspirational. I have given the two books to my daughter, a very adventurous cook, and to other enterprising young chefs. Both of these books are crammed with the kind of grandmotherly advice and observations that every cook, even old hands like me, appreciates. Anyone who finds Erica’s improvisational approach to cooking will find these two books thoroughly rewarding.
Robert
Robert,
I completely agree with you about both of those book, which I own. Both gals loosened up as they moved on. I made my way through tons of cookbooks as my career unfolded and discovered many good teachers out there.
Erica,
I cant believe I ran across this blog just now! I was looking for the proper spelling for what we used to call jumbott when I was a kid. now i know the proper spelling not the NY Italian slang!!!
Love the story and as much as I try Marcella’s book I dont click with it either..Ill stick to my memories of recipes from my Nonna and standing in her kitchen as a kid, making milk soaked bread for meatballs,”brazjole” and other terrific things as you mention all throughout this blog. I really miss those days back on Long Island where I we could get the things we needed really close to home whit out having to go to a specialty store like I have to do here in San Diego! i look forward to more!!!
Dawn
Thanks Dawn. Glad you liked the post. I was a bit hesitant taking on such an Italian cooking icon, but, that’s the way it was for me, and I guess for you too. I think Marcella doesn’t resonate as well with stubborn cooks, like me, people who want to do it their way. I tend to take what I need from a cookbook and leave the rest.
I do exactly the same, I think we are from the same era…or cut from the same Italian stubborn cloth! Hey any one of us with the determination can become an icon such as Marcella. As soon as I can afford it though I want to get one of your books, I have a feeling I’d like them..again great blog!
Dawn,
If you go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble online you can often find used copies of my books available at good prices.
Best to you