Hazan’s cookbooks, methods shaped the way we eat today
When Marcella Hazan died a year ago at age 89, Christiane Amanpour described her to CNN viewers as “one remarkable woman” who “set the dining room table, and the tastes, for millions of Italian food lovers.” Hazan did so by vigorously extolling – and defending – the virtues of authentic Italian cuisine in her popular and award-winning cookbooks and in her influential cooking classes and appearances.
Her husband, Victor Hazan, cites that CNN report when asked why people remember his late wife. Amanpour, he wrote in an email, “said that there are people across the nation and around the globe who may not even recognize Marcella’s name but are eating differently because of her.”
Born in Cesenatico, a coastal town in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, Marcella Hazan arrived in New York City in 1955 armed with doctorate degrees in science and a limited knowledge of English. She didn’t know how to cook.
Hazan became “by necessity, a cook” when she married Victor, she wrote later, grabbing an Ada Boni cookbook and diving in.
“I was awakened by the sensations from another time and other places. I saw, I smelled, I tasted dishes that, until recently, had been commonplace in my life,” Hazan recalled in “Amarcord,” her 2008 memoir. “My taste memories were being released, and attached to them, mysteriously, was an intuitive understanding of how to produce those tastes. Cooking came to me as though it had been there all along, waiting to be expressed; it came as words come to a child when it is time for her to speak.”
Hazan became a cooking teacher in 1969 when the Chinese cooking class she was taking lost its teacher. Her fellow students asked Hazan to teach them to cook Italian.
And that’s how Craig Claiborne discovered her.
Claiborne, then food editor of The New York Times, had heard about the cooking lessons and invited himself over for lunch. The resulting story ran on Oct. 15, 1970, with the headline: “There Was a Time She Couldn’t Cook …”
Clearly, Claiborne thought she could cook by then; the story featured four of her recipes.
The attention led to a cookbook, “Classic Italian Cooking,” in 1973. And that led to Julia and Paul Child coming over for lunch. Julia Child offered to introduce the Hazans to Judith Jones, her editor at Knopf. Jones quickly bought the rights to “Classic Italian Cooking” and republished it to great acclaim in 1976.
“From then on, it just started snowballing,” said Victor Hazan by telephone from his home on Long Boat Key, Florida. “Before we knew it, Marcella was an international celebrity.”
Other cookbooks followed: “More Classic Italian Cooking” (1978), “Marcella’s Italian Kitchen” (1986), “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking” (1992), “Marcella Cucina” (1997), “Marcella Says…” (2004). The Hazans launched a very popular program of cooking classes in Italy. She toured the world making appearances and teaching.
Their son, Giuliano Hazan, a Sarasota, Florida-based cookbook author and teacher, says his mother “made it possible for people to think they could cook at home for their families without it being an onerous experience.” His mother’s genius, he added, was her intuition – she knew what would go well together and how long something should cook – and you watched and learned.
Marcella Hazan was “notoriously impatient” if people weren’t paying attention in her classes, says Nick Malgieri, the New York-based author and baker. His favorite story on that topic concerns two women chattering away during a demonstration. Hazan stopped talking, he says, lit a cigarette, took a swig from her glass and waited for them to be quiet. Then she spoke. “You came here to listen to me. I didn’t come here to listen to you.”
And while perceptions of Marcella Hazan certainly ran the gamut – her bluntness won fans and made enemies – the food world paid attention to what she said.
“People didn’t think of Italian as great food. She challenged that,” says Jacques Pepin, the French-born chef, author and television cooking show star based in Madison, Connecticut. “She did what she did with very strong conviction, and that’s the way it was regardless of whether people liked it or not. “
Lidia Bastianich, herself a champion of and authority on Italian cooking, says Hazan will be remembered for that conviction and for her “clear and precise” recipes.
“I hear over and over from my customers, ‘Marcella’s recipes work,’ ” said Bastianich, a TV cooking star, best-selling cookbook author, successful restaurateur and co-owner of Eataly Chicago. “She will be remembered for the precision of her recipes and her relentless message of cooking according to Italian tradition.”
Victor Hazan says that was one of his wife’s “great virtues,” held by her to the very end: sticking with what she believed in. “Nobody, not even the pope, could budge her,” he said.
“People used to look down on it. Italian food was crude,” Victor Hazan added. “Marcella made Italian food respectable. It is now the most widely spread and popular food in the United States. That’s quite an achievement for a simple woman from Romagna.”
Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter
The most famous of Marcella Hazan’s recipes, from 1992’s “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.” Hazan recommends serving the sauce with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano over potato gnocchi, spaghetti, penne or rigatoni.
2 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes, blanched, peeled, chopped coarsely, or 2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
5 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half
Salt
1 to 1 1/2 pounds pasta
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for the table
Put either the prepared fresh tomatoes or the canned in a saucepan, add the butter, onion and salt, and cook uncovered at a very slow but steady simmer for 45 minutes, or until the fat floats free from the tomato. Stir from time to time, mashing any large piece of tomato in the pan with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and correct for salt. Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta.
Yield: 6 servings