Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (4 page)

In the years when Artusi was cultivating his gastronomic vocation, Plàtina’s enormous indebtedness to Maestro Martino’s
Libra de arte coquinaria
(Book on the art of cooking) had not yet been discovered. We owe this precious acquisition to Joseph Dommers Vehling (1879–1950), the Chicago-based author of
Plàtina and the Rebirth of Man
.
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In 1927, Vehling acquired one of the five extant scribal manuscripts of Maestro Martino’s work and proceeded to compare the cook’s manual with the erudite volume of the humanist. Maestro Martino’s is, arguably, an epochal text, one in which old culinary traditions (Catalan, Arab, etc.) are subsumed in a formerly unimaginable perspective, and new practices are enacted that no longer depend on the spice trade (effectively blocked by the Turkish occupation of the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean). With Martino, the use of garden herbs and the filling of ravioli with minced meats ceases to be an oddity and becomes the hallmark of modern Italian cuisine.

Other gastronomes further developed Martino’s legacy: Cristoforo Messisbugo’s
Libro novo nel qual s’insegna a far d’ogni sorte di vivanda
(A new book that teaches how to make every sort of victual; Ferrara, 1549) aimed to teach “the method for preparing banquets,
setting tables, furnishing palaces, and decorating chambers for every great Prince.” Bartolomeo Scappi, the private cook of Pope Pius V, published his
Opera
(Works) in Venice in 1570. Vincenzo Cervio’s
Il Trinciante
(The carver; Ferrara, 1581) delves into the art “of carving victuals (especially meats) in the same hall where the banquet was taking place, in front of the table set with foods. In a culture that attributed great importance to the serving of the meats and to the distribution of the parts in accordance with the prestige and the power of each single guest, the centrality and signficance of this ancient custom speaks for itself, not just from a technical point of view, but from the social and, if you will, political as well.”
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Moving rapidly through the centuries, we cannot leave unremarked curious texts such as the
Brieve racconto di tutte le radici di tutte l’erbe e di tutti i frutti che crudi o cotti in Italia si mangiano
(A short account of all the roots and all the herbs and all the fruits eaten in Italy raw or cooked; 1614), by Giacomo Castelvetro. In the first years of the seventeenth century, when the impetus of the Italian gastronomic adventure was beginning to slacken, he taught his stupefied mutton-eating English hosts that salads and fruits are edible and, in fact, excellent nutrients.

Of singular importance, from our Artusian point of view, is the second edition of Bartolomeo Stefani’s
L’arte di ben cucinare
(The art of cooking well; Venice, 1666), with an appendix devoted to meals prepared for limited numbers of people.
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A second feature of this work, one that would seem to anticipate Artusi, is the concern shown for “money matters” (Stefani doesn’t hesitate to offer estimates of what a given set of courses might cost), showing that gastronomy is moving away from the unconstrained
otium
of the aristocracy towards the much less glamorous, but no less fastidious,
negotium
of the bourgeoisie.

As a token of his esteem, Artusi included one of Stefani’s recipes for soup in
Scienza in cucina
, calling it
Zuppa alia Stefani
. In his exhaustive introduction to the Einardi edition of
Scienza in cucina
, Professor Camporesi has given us a whole list of the recipes borrowed
from the ancient masters, and yet, he rightly points out, Stefani’s is the only case in which the name of the source is unequivocally brought forth.
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Typically, the compliment paid does not go unaccompanied by some good-humored criticism, the illustration of which we shall leave to Artusi’s own pen: “At [Stefani’sJ time, much use and abuse was made of all manner of seasonings and spices, and sugar and cinnamon were used in broth, as well as in making boiled or roasted meat. Omitting some of his instructions for this soup, I shall limit myself, aromatically speaking, to a bit of parsley and basil. And if the ancient Bolognese cook, meeting me in the afterworld, scolds me for it, I shall defend myself by explaining that tastes have changed
for the better
. As with all things, however, we go from one extreme to the other, and we are now beginning to exaggerate in the opposite direction, going as far as to exclude herbs and spices from dishes that require them.”
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A fair summary of the Italian gastronomic tradition was offered, just before its waning from the stage upon which it had trodden for so long, by Antonio Latini’s
Scalco alia moderna
(Modern carving; Naples, 1694). Indeed, Artusi’s recipe 334
(polpette di trippa
[tripe meatballs]) comes straight from its pages and is introduced by the following words: “This dish, taken, from a treatise on cooking dating from 1694, might seem strange to you, and the mere mention of tripe will probably make you reluctant to try it. But in spite of its homely character, when prepared with the proper seasonings it turns out quite pleasant and does not lie heavy on the stomach.”
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During the last decades of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth, French cultural supremacy permeated every aspect of Italian life, particularly gastronomy. From an Italo-centric point of view, the phenomenon can be viewed as a kind of abdication, political as well as ethical. The transalpine challenge met with no resistance whatsoever: the only perceivable reaction was perhaps a diffused sense of inferiority, eloquently borne out either by the habit of marketing manuals as if they were translations from the French, or by the unashamed use of titles in which inferiority is openly admitted, as
with the anonymous
Il cuoco piemontese perfezionato a Parigi
(A Piedmontese cook perfected in Paris), published in Turin in 1766.
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The much quoted Massimo Montanari, writing about this retrenchment of Italian gastronomy from positions of dominance to pockets of regional resistance (I assume full responsibility for the military intonation of the metaphor), has remarked that “This phenomenon should not necessarily be read as an involution: we can also see in it the discovery of a repressed vocation, of a submerged cultural reality in the early stages of appreciation … Perhaps the very political weakness of Italy and its distance from the true centers of power allowed it to free up local gastronomical culture from the frills of ostentation that had concealed its character and content for so long. Perhaps it was this that kept local peculiarities alive and accentuated them by denying Italy a true national cuisine and by reinforcing the connections between gastronomy and territory.”
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Many, indeed, are the manuals published in Italy from the age of Vico to the time of Artusi that offer their readers samples of localized competence couched in decidedly modest linguistic performance.
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Yet, a small number of treatises attempt to recover a national dimension, such as Francesco Leonardi’s
Apicio moderno, ossia l’arte di apprestare ogni sorta di vivande
(The modern Apicius, or the art of preparing every sort of victual; Rome, 1807), a six-volume gastronomic encyclopedia introduced by what is likely to be the first historical profile of Italian cuisine,
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and Giovanni Nelli’s
Il re dei cuochi
(The king of cooks; Milan, 1868), an ample culinary dissertation whose shaky claims of universality are shored up by “lessons” in hygiene, food preservation, table setting for both intimate and deluxe meals, and a special section of recipes for children and convalescents.

Artusi knew both Nelli’s and Leonardi’s books well (he borrows substantially from the latter), as he did many of the “regional” treatises. Furthermore, he had a keen eye for yet another kind of cooking manual: those that were no longer aimed at professional chefs but at middle-class family cooks, housewives, and their domestic helpers.
Throughout the nineteenth century, in the north as well as in the southern regions of the nation, such manuals compulsively recommended that the pleasures of the table be seasoned with the principles of temperance and, above all, thriftiness. Such is the case with Vincenzo Agnoletti’s
La nuovissima cucina economica
(New economical cooking; Rome, 1814), from which Artusi borrows “his”
zuppa di visciole
(sour cherry delight).
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The author is so much aware of this new middle-class audience – and so in agreement with their economic and ethical values – that he worries about his ability to communicate to them. At times his recipes read like answers to queries gleaned from the columns of a daily paper: “My fear of not being understood by everyone leads me to provide too many details, which I would gladly spare the reader. Still, some people never seem to be satisfied. For instance, a cook from a town in Romagna wrote to me: ‘I prepared the blood pudding described in your highly esteemed cookbook for my employers. It was very well liked, except that I didn’t quite understand how to pass the almond and the candied fruit through the sieve. Would you be good enough to tell me how to do this?’ Delighted by the question, I answered her: ‘I am not sure if you know that you can find sieves made especially for this purpose. One type is strong and widely spaced, and is made with horsehair. Another is made of very fine wire. With these, a good mortar and
elbow-grease
, you can puree even the most difficult things.’”
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Artusi’s voice may be that of the well-meaning schoolteacher with a sense of humor as preposterous as the nonchalance with which it is proffered, yet his style is never obscure and ridiculous (or ridiculously obscure), as was often the case in the history of culinary writing.
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One never knows whether Artusi’s mixture of “sacred and profane” is a deliberate stylistic statement, or simply the outcome of a prodigiously active inertia. Of this critical incertitude, the entry with the recipe for minestrone is a sublime example. It opens with the story of a cholera outbreak that struck Tuscany in 1855 and showed no special concern for Artusi:

I had taken lodgings in the Piazza del Voltone, in a whitewashed villa run by a certain Mr. Domenici. That night, I felt the onset of a frightening disturbance in my body … “Damned minestrone! You will never fool me again!” …

Morning came, and feeling myself totally drained, I caught the first train and escaped to Florence, where I immediately felt much better. Monday the sad news reached me that cholera had broken out in Livorno, and the first to be struck dead was no other than Domenici himself.

And to think that I had blamed the minestrone!

After three attempts, improving upon the dish each time, this is how I like to make it …
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And so on, without batting an eyelash. Indeed, Artusi seems to be as unaware of any impropriety in the juxtaposition of essentially incompatible materials as Peter Sellers, in the guise of Chief Inspector Clouseau, is of the equally unmitigated dangers he is constantly going through, and emerging from, unscathed.

Sitting atop this double patrimony of classical Italian gastronomy and its regional diversity – which for centuries had been the exclusive domain of technicians, and the singular privilege of the upper classes who employed them – and faced with the task of redeeming it from French dominance and disseminating it among bourgeois readers whose economic values and ethical expectations he fully shared, Artusi may seem more like a pop orchestra conductor than an avant-garde musician. In fact, he is an inspired synthesizer: while the substance of traditional recipes is only minimally altered (a few wrinkles are merely smoothed away), the idea of turning loose so many anecdotes, historical references, scientific condensations, cameos profiling Italian everyday life, and so much more, upon pages earmarked for measurements and cooking times, proved to be a major step forward in the evolution of the cookbook as a literary genre.

Typically, his recipe for
spaghetti alia rustica
(country-style spaghetti) opens with two cases of aversion to garlic: the ancient Roman
aristocracy and Alfonso King of Castile, who “hated it so much he would punish anyone who appeared at his court with even a hint of it in his breath.” Artusi then switches to the esteem in which it was held by ancient Egyptians, who “worshipped garlic as a divinity, perhaps because they had experienced its medicinal properties.” Next he describes these healthful properties, ranging from the beneficial effects on hysteria to garlic’s immunizing power “against epidemic and pestilential diseases.” Finally he warns against banning garlic from cooking on account of its problematic smell (when poorly cooked) and encourages his readers not to deprive themselves “of healthy, tasty dishes,” such as the one he is presenting, “which has often comforted my stomach when upset.”
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Alfredo Roncuzzi, who first drew my attention to the unsurpassable quality of this small but exemplary jewel, has counted the lines and remarked on the perfect balance of the whole: “19 lines in the preface [17 of them in translation], “ lines of instruction, but the text in its entirety is simply flawless.”
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To introduce
tartufi alia bolognese
(truffles Bolognese style),
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Artusi does not hesitate to compare the colors of truffles to the Whites and the Blacks, political factions that, during their struggle for power, caused the citizens of medieval Florence great suffering. When calling attention to a particularly inappropriate usage of gastronomic terminology, he goes so far as to lift an example from the most sacred of texts: “The Holy Scriptures say that Joshua stopped the sun and not the earth.
Well, we do the same when we talk about chickens
, because the hip should be called the thigh, the thigh should be called the leg, and the leg should be called the tarsus.”
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