Marcella Hazan
Encyclopedia
Marcella Hazan, maiden name Marcella Polini, (born 1924) is an Italian
cookery writer who writes in English
. Her cookbook
s are credited with introducing the public in the United States
and Britain to the techniques of traditional Italian cooking
. She is widely considered by chef
s and fellow food writers to be one of the foremost authorities on Italian cuisine.
in Emilia-Romagna
. She earned a doctorate in natural sciences and biology
from the University of Ferrara
. In 1955 she married Victor Hazan, an Italian-born, New York-raised Sephardic Jew http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/dining/10hazan.html?pagewanted=all who subsequently gained fame as a wine
writer, and the couple moved to New York City
a few months later.
Hazan had never cooked before her marriage. As she recounted in the introduction to her 1997 book Marcella Cucina, '... there I was, having to feed a young, hard-working husband who could deal cheerfully with most of life's ups and downs, but not with an indifferent meal. In Italy, I would not have wasted time thinking about it. My mother cooked, my father cooked, both my grandmothers cooked, even the farm girls who came in to clean could cook. In the kitchen of my New York apartment there was no one.' She began by using cookbooks from Italy, but then realised that she had an exceptionally clear memory of the flavours she had tasted at home and found it easy to reproduce them herself. 'Eventually I learned that some of the methods I adopted were idiosyncratically my own,' she recalled, 'but for most of them I found corroboration in the practices of traditional Italian cooks.'
Hazan began giving cooking lessons in her apartment, and opened her own cooking school, The School of Classic Italian Cooking, in 1969. In the early 1970s, Craig Claiborne
, who was then the food editor of the New York Times, asked her to contribute recipes to the paper. She published her first book, The Classic Italian Cook Book, in 1973. In 1980, having been published in a version adapted for a British readership by Anna Del Conte
, it won an André Simon Award. A sequel, More Classic Italian Cooking, followed in 1978; the two were collected in one volume, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, in 1992. In 1997 Marcella Cucina won the James Beard
Best Mediterranean Cookbook award and the Julia Child
Award for Best International Cookbook.
Hazan's cookbooks concentrate on strictly traditional Italian cookery without American or British influence. Her recipes tend to use only ingredients that would actually be used in Italian kitchens (with some concessions for ingredients that are not readily available outside Italy). They are also designed to fit into an Italian menu of two balanced 'principal courses' followed by a salad and dessert.
Hazan's recipes emphasise careful attention to detail. She recommends preparing food by hand rather than by machine, and prefers the stovetop to the oven because it allows the cook to engage more fully with the food. However, her recipes are not necessarily complicated: One of the most popular consists simply of a chicken
roasted with two lemon
s in its cavity.
Among the techniques Hazan suggests are:
Hazan frequently prefaces her recipes with descriptions of how the food is eaten in Italy, or with her own memories of it. Her recipe for coffee
ice
with whipped cream
, included in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, begins:
Hazan has been credited with starting the craze for balsamic vinegar
, something she later regretted as she thought people were overusing it.
Craig Claiborne said of Hazan's work, "No one has ever done more to spread the gospel of pure Italian cookery in America". The food critic Jeffrey Steingarten
, who once travelled to the Hazans' second home in Venice
for a cooking lesson, predicted that Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking 'will become the essential Italian cookbook for an entire generation.' In a review of Marcella's Italian Kitchen for salon.com
, Craig Seligman criticised Hazan's "impatient and judgmental tone", but added: "... her recipes are so beautiful and so reliable and, most of the time, so brilliantly simple that what can you do but venerate her and love her in spite of herself?" http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/12/27/warped/
In 1998, Hazan retired from her cooking school, and she and Victor moved to Longboat Key, Florida
. There Hazan found that she could no longer get some of the Italian ingredients she had taken for granted in New York, and she decided to write a cookbook for people in the same situation. The result was Marcella Says ..., published in 2004.
Hazan continues to teach courses at the French Culinary Institute
. In 2005, she was given a knighthood by Italy's president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
.
Hazan's son, Giuliano
, is also a noted cookery writer and teacher. Together with his wife [Lael] and Marilisa Allegrini, one of Italy's most distinguished producers of noble red wine, he runs a cooking school in a restored 15th century villa, outside of Verona
, Italy. In 2007 Giuliano received the coveted Cooking Teacher of the Year Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals, IACP. Giuliano is a regular guest on NBC's The Today Show and is particularly known for the simplicity of his dishes.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
cookery writer who writes in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Her cookbook
Cookbook
A cookbook is a kitchen reference that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions...
s are credited with introducing the public in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Britain to the techniques of traditional Italian cooking
Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...
. She is widely considered by chef
Chef
A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...
s and fellow food writers to be one of the foremost authorities on Italian cuisine.
Biography
Hazan was born in 1924 in the village of CesenaticoCesenatico
Cesenatico is a port town with about 20,000 inhabitants on the Adriatic coast of Italy. It is located in the province of Forlì-Cesena in the region of Emilia-Romagna, about 30 km south of Ravenna...
in Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
. She earned a doctorate in natural sciences and biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
from the University of Ferrara
University of Ferrara
The University of Ferrara is the main university of the city of Ferrara in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. In the years prior to the First World War the University of Ferrara, with more than 500 students, was the best attended of the free universities in Italy...
. In 1955 she married Victor Hazan, an Italian-born, New York-raised Sephardic Jew http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/dining/10hazan.html?pagewanted=all who subsequently gained fame as a wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
writer, and the couple moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
a few months later.
Hazan had never cooked before her marriage. As she recounted in the introduction to her 1997 book Marcella Cucina, '... there I was, having to feed a young, hard-working husband who could deal cheerfully with most of life's ups and downs, but not with an indifferent meal. In Italy, I would not have wasted time thinking about it. My mother cooked, my father cooked, both my grandmothers cooked, even the farm girls who came in to clean could cook. In the kitchen of my New York apartment there was no one.' She began by using cookbooks from Italy, but then realised that she had an exceptionally clear memory of the flavours she had tasted at home and found it easy to reproduce them herself. 'Eventually I learned that some of the methods I adopted were idiosyncratically my own,' she recalled, 'but for most of them I found corroboration in the practices of traditional Italian cooks.'
Hazan began giving cooking lessons in her apartment, and opened her own cooking school, The School of Classic Italian Cooking, in 1969. In the early 1970s, Craig Claiborne
Craig Claiborne
Craig Claiborne was an American restaurant critic, food writer and former food editor of the New York Times. He was the author of numerous cookbooks and an autobiography...
, who was then the food editor of the New York Times, asked her to contribute recipes to the paper. She published her first book, The Classic Italian Cook Book, in 1973. In 1980, having been published in a version adapted for a British readership by Anna Del Conte
Anna Del Conte
Anna Del Conte is an Italian-born food writer whose works cover the history of food as well as providing recipes. Resident in England since 1949, she has been influential in raising the country’s awareness of Italian cuisine: her 1976 Portrait of Pasta has been described as ‘the instrumental force...
, it won an André Simon Award. A sequel, More Classic Italian Cooking, followed in 1978; the two were collected in one volume, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, in 1992. In 1997 Marcella Cucina won the James Beard
James Beard
James Andrew Beard was an American chef and food writer. The central figure in the story of the establishment of a gourmet American food identity, Beard was an eccentric personality who brought French cooking to the American middle and upper classes in the 1950s...
Best Mediterranean Cookbook award and the Julia Child
Julia Child
Julia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...
Award for Best International Cookbook.
Hazan's cookbooks concentrate on strictly traditional Italian cookery without American or British influence. Her recipes tend to use only ingredients that would actually be used in Italian kitchens (with some concessions for ingredients that are not readily available outside Italy). They are also designed to fit into an Italian menu of two balanced 'principal courses' followed by a salad and dessert.
Hazan's recipes emphasise careful attention to detail. She recommends preparing food by hand rather than by machine, and prefers the stovetop to the oven because it allows the cook to engage more fully with the food. However, her recipes are not necessarily complicated: One of the most popular consists simply of a chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
roasted with two lemon
Lemon
The lemon is both a small evergreen tree native to Asia, and the tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit. The fruit is used for culinary and non-culinary purposes throughout the world – primarily for its juice, though the pulp and rind are also used, mainly in cooking and baking...
s in its cavity.
Among the techniques Hazan suggests are:
- Choose vegetableVegetableThe noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....
s that are in season and plan the entire meal around them. - Soak vegetables in cold water for half an hour before cooking to remove all trace of grit. Cook them until they are tender, but not mushy, so that they have a rich flavour.
- When sauteéing onionOnionThe onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
s, put them in a cold pan with oil and heat them gently; this will make them release their flavour gradually and give them a mellower taste than starting them in a hot pan. - Although some types of pastaPastaPasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...
, like tagliatelleTagliatelleTagliatelle and tagliolini are a traditional type of pasta from Emilia-Romagna and Marches, regions of Italy. Individual pieces of tagliatelle are long, flat ribbons that are similar in shape to fettuccine and are typically about 0.65 cm to 1 cm wide...
, are best made freshly at home, others, like spaghettiSpaghettiSpaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin. Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour...
, should be bought dried. Pasta should be matched carefully to sauce. - Olive oilOlive oilOlive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
isn't always the best choice for frying; in delicately flavoured dishes, a combination of butterButterButter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
and vegetable oil should be used. - Garlic pressGarlic pressA garlic press is a kitchen utensil to crush garlic cloves efficiently by forcing them through a grid of small holes, usually with some type of piston...
es should be avoided at all costs.
Hazan frequently prefaces her recipes with descriptions of how the food is eaten in Italy, or with her own memories of it. Her recipe for coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
ice
Italian ice
Italian ice, also known as water ice, is a sweetened frozen dessert made with fruit or other natural or artificial food flavorings, similar to sorbet. Italian ice is not shaved ice that is flavored; rather, it is made by the same process by which ice cream is made: freezing the ingredients while...
with whipped cream
Whipped cream
Whipped cream is cream that has been beaten by a mixer, whisk, or fork until it is light and fluffy. Whipped cream is often sweetened and sometimes flavored with vanilla, in which case it may be called Chantilly cream or crème Chantilly ....
, included in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, begins:
Hazan has been credited with starting the craze for balsamic vinegar
Balsamic vinegar
Balsamic vinegar is a condiment originating from Italy.The original traditional product , made from a reduction of cooked white Trebbiano grape juice and not a vinegar in the usual sense, has been made in Modena and Reggio Emilia since the Middle Ages: the production of the balsamic vinegar is...
, something she later regretted as she thought people were overusing it.
Craig Claiborne said of Hazan's work, "No one has ever done more to spread the gospel of pure Italian cookery in America". The food critic Jeffrey Steingarten
Jeffrey Steingarten
Jeffrey Steingarten is a leading food writer in the United States. He has been the food critic at Vogue magazine since 1989. His monthly columns in Vogue have earned him a National Magazine Award, and nearly a dozen James Beard Awards and nominations...
, who once travelled to the Hazans' second home in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
for a cooking lesson, predicted that Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking 'will become the essential Italian cookbook for an entire generation.' In a review of Marcella's Italian Kitchen for salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, Craig Seligman criticised Hazan's "impatient and judgmental tone", but added: "... her recipes are so beautiful and so reliable and, most of the time, so brilliantly simple that what can you do but venerate her and love her in spite of herself?" http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/12/27/warped/
In 1998, Hazan retired from her cooking school, and she and Victor moved to Longboat Key, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. There Hazan found that she could no longer get some of the Italian ingredients she had taken for granted in New York, and she decided to write a cookbook for people in the same situation. The result was Marcella Says ..., published in 2004.
Hazan continues to teach courses at the French Culinary Institute
French Culinary Institute
The French Culinary Institute , also known as The International Culinary Center has locations in SoHo, New York City and in the San Francisco Bay Area of California....
. In 2005, she was given a knighthood by Italy's president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
dr. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is an Italian politician and banker. He was the 73rd Prime Minister of Italy from 1993 to 1994 and was the tenth President of the Italian Republic from 1999 to 2006...
.
Hazan's son, Giuliano
Giuliano Hazan
Giuliano Hazan is a cookbook author and educator who travels throughout the world teaching Italian cooking. The son of Italian cooking doyenne Marcella Hazan, his combination of Italian palate and American organization makes his message of fresh ingredients prepared in a simple manner, clear,...
, is also a noted cookery writer and teacher. Together with his wife [Lael] and Marilisa Allegrini, one of Italy's most distinguished producers of noble red wine, he runs a cooking school in a restored 15th century villa, outside of Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, Italy. In 2007 Giuliano received the coveted Cooking Teacher of the Year Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals, IACP. Giuliano is a regular guest on NBC's The Today Show and is particularly known for the simplicity of his dishes.
Awards
- Maria Luigia, Duchess of Parma, Gold Medal (Italy)
- James Beard FoundationJames Beard FoundationThe James Beard Foundation is a New York-based national professional non-profit organization named in honor of James Beard that serves to promote the culinary arts by honoring chefs, wine professionals, journalists, and cookbook authors at annual award ceremonies and providing scholarships and...
's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America, 1986 - Silver Spoon Award from Food Arts magazine, 1992 (with Victor Hazan)
- Golden Cheese Knife, 1997 (Italy)
- James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000
- Lifetime Achievement Award, International Association of Culinary ProfessionalsInternational Association of Culinary ProfessionalsThe International Association of Culinary Professionals is a United States based not-for-profit professional association whose members work in culinary education, communication, or the preparation of food and beverage....
, 2004 - Cavaliere della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Knight of the Star of Italian Solidarity), Italy, 2005
External links
- Official web page (at harpercollins.com)
- Marcella Hazan Chef Profile at Epicurious
- Marcella Hazan: Italian Cooking with a Master from National Public Radio. Radio interview in RealMedia or Windows Media.
- James Beard Foundation press release
- IACP biography
- Blog cooking through Hazan's books