Pellegrino Artusi (Forlimpopoli, near Forlì

Forlì

Forlì is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the right of the Montone river, and is an important agricultural centre...

 August 4, 1820 – Florence, March 30, 1911) is best known as the author of famous Italian cookbook "La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene" (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well).

Biography

Son of a wealthy pharmacist named Agostino (called Buranèl, or "little eel") and Teresa Giunchi, Pellegrino Artusi came from a large family; he had 12 siblings. He was named Pellegrino in honor of Saint Pellegrino Laziosi of Forlì. Like many wealthy children, he went to seminary school in the nearby town of Bertinoro

Bertinoro

Bertinoro is a town and comune in the province of Forlì-Cesena, Emilia-Romagna . It is located on hill, Mount Cesubeo, in Romagna, a few kilometers from the Via Emilia.-History:...

.

Between the years 1835 and 1850, Artusi spent a great deal of time in student circles in Bologna (in one of his works he claims to have been enrolled at the University). In the bar "Tre Re" he met the patriot Felice Orsini

Felice Orsini

Felice Orsini was an Italian revolutionary and leader of the Carbonari who tried to assassinate Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.-Early:Felice Orsini was born at Meldola in Romagna, then part of the Papal States....

, from Meldola

Meldola

-History:The area of Meldola was inhabited since very ancient times. The Romans built here a large aqueduct which served the military port of Classis. To the 5th-6th century belongs a large patrician villa which is now under the historical centre.In the Middle Ages a castle was present, the name...

 another town near Forlì.

When he went back to his hometown, he took over his father's business, making quite a bit of money, but the lives of the Artusi family were permanently disrupted by the arrival in Forlimpopoli

Forlimpopoli

Forlimpopoli is a town and comune in the Province of Forlì-Cesena, northern Italy. It is located on the Via Emilia between Cesena and Forlì.-History:...

 on January 25, 1851 of the outlaw Stefano Pelloni, nicknamed the Shepard. He took all of the upper-class families hostage, one by one, and held them captive in the city theater, including Pellegrino Artusi's family. After stealing as much as possible, the bandits raped several women, one of whom was Gertrude, Artusi's sister, who went crazy from the shock and had to be put in an insane asylum.

The following year, the family moved to Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. 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 of 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 San Miniato al Monte cemetery.

His most famous work is La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well). The title is clearly of a positivist bent. Artusi worshiped progress the and scientific method, which he used in his book. He was also an admirer of the physiologist Paolo Mantegazza

Paolo Mantegazza

Paolo Mantegazza was a prominent Italian neurologist, physiologist and anthropologist, noted for his experimental investigation of coca leaves into its effects on the human psyche. He was also an author of fiction.-Life:...

. His book, in fact, can be considered a "scientifically tested" manual: every recipe was the result of trails and experiments.

Writing only two decades after the unification of Italy, Artusi was the first to include recipes from all the different regions of Italy in a single cookbook. He is often credited with establishing a truly national Italian cuisine for the first time.

The case of minestrone and cholera

Of particular interest is the story told by Artusi himself regarding a bad experience which occurred during the summer in Livorno in 1855, when Artusi came in contact with cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

, the infective disease that in that era took many lives in Italy.
Once in Livorno, Artusi went to a restaurant to have dinner. After eating minestrone, he decided to rent a room in the building belonging to one Domenici. As Artusi would later recount, he spent the whole night suffering from horrible stomach pains, which he blamed on the minestrone he had eaten. The next day, returning to Florence, he got the news that Livorno had been hit by cholera and that Domenici had been a victim. It was only then that he realized what had happened: it had not been the minestrone that made him ill, but the early symptoms of the disease. The event inspired Artusi to write an excellent recipe for minestrone.

Works

There are three works by Artusi: two non fiction books and a cooking manual. The non-fiction works, a biography of Ugo Foscolo

Ugo Foscolo

Ugo Foscolo , born Niccolò Foscolo, was an Italian writer, revolutionary and poet.-Biography:Foscolo was born on the Ionian island of Zakynthos...

 and a critique of Giuseppe Giusti

Giuseppe Giusti

Giuseppe Giusti was an Italian poet.-Biography:Giusti was born at Monsummano Terme, a small town of the Valdinievole, now in the province of Pistoia....

, went largely unnoticed and quickly went out of print.

His manual, however, entitled La Scienza in cucina e l'Arte di mangiar bene, was much more successful. In 1891, at age 71, he completed his cookbook, but could not find a publisher. So he used his own money to self-publish, selling a thousand copies of the first edition in four years. Soon, however, the cookbook caught on, and before Artusi died, more than 200,000 copies had been sold. Filled with amusing anecdotes as well as recipes, the book is a perennial best seller in Italy, and has been translated into Spanish, Dutch, German and English, and most recently, Portuguese.

In 1904, Artusi published a practical manual for the kitchen, with over 3,000 recipes and 150 tables, simply entitled "Ecco il tuo libro di cucina" (Here is your cookbook) with the anonymous participation and influence of the baroness Giulia Turco

Giulia Turco

Giulia Turco, , or Giulia Turco Lazzari , was a baroness best known as a naturalist and writer in her native Trento, Italy. She was married to the Venetian musician Raffaello Lazzari....

.

Dedications

Festa artusiana – Artusi Festival
Since 1997 the municipal of Forlimpopoli, Artusi's hometown, has celebrated Artusi with the "Festa Artusiana", an event completely dedicated to food in all of its forms: gastronomy, culture, and entertainment. Each year during this festival the "Pellegrino Artusi Prize" is awarded to the person who gives the most original contribution to the relationship between man and food, and the "Marietta Prize", named after Pellegrino Artusi's collaborator, is given to a housewife or househusband who are – in the spirit of Pellegrino and Marietta – able homemakers.

Editions

• La Scienza in Cucina E L'arte Di Mangiar Bene, Grandi Tascabili Economici 1975, ISBN 88-7983-555-6
• Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, University of Toronto Press 2003, ISBN 0-8020-8657-8