The Woman Who Made Us All Italian

December 21, 2024 8:16 AM

How Marcella Hazan demystified one of the world’s major cuisines for Americans trapped in a Wonder Bread world.
posted by goatdog (15 comments total)

The legendary tomato sauce
posted by Lemkin at 9:05 AM on December 21, 2024 [12 favorites]

I still don't understand how or why that sauce works so damn well, but it really absurdly does. Doesn't stop me from making my obnoxious everything in the fridge tomato sauce for things, but sometimes it just scratches something you can't get otherwise.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:27 AM on December 21, 2024 [2 favorites]

I still don't understand how or why that sauce works so damn well

My operating theory: Enough butter to, in A. J. Liebling's phrase, "thrombose a regiment of Paul Dudley Whites".
posted by Lemkin at 9:41 AM on December 21, 2024 [5 favorites]

her son is a chef as well
posted by Clowder of bats at 9:49 AM on December 21, 2024 [1 favorite]

I appreciate that she is not subject to modern publishing's dictate that recipes have to be unusual or complicated enough to be with a book. Get Alfredo is almost an anti-recipe.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:18 AM on December 21, 2024 [2 favorites]

That sauce is one of the first things my teenage daughter cooked all by herself from scratch, and she now shows it off whenever the opportunity arises. If you haven't tried it you're making bad life choices.
posted by 1adam12 at 10:40 AM on December 21, 2024 [3 favorites]

Recently I had to use up some mushrooms, so I made a pot of that sauce while I boiled some shells and then filled them with ricotta and mushrooms-sauteed-with-garlic-and-butter. I slathered them all with the sauce and vacuum-sealed up lunch-sized portions.

Each time I have pulled one of these out of the freezer it's like finding $20 in the pocket of a coat. So damn good.

Her cooking reminds me of my mom's: good, but not intricate, in a way that I can learn to do.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:10 AM on December 21, 2024 [8 favorites]

Both of my parents are excellent cooks, and I grew up hearing about the horrors of the aspirational "food of the future" they ate as kids - Wonder Bread, Tang, gelatin-covered this and that, margarine, etc.

I'm grateful to Hazan and all the others who reintroduced decent and flavorful food to mainstream US kitchens (recognizing that outside that definitionally narrow lens plenty of people were cooking and eating well).
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 11:22 AM on December 21, 2024 [2 favorites]

"I still don't understand how or why that sauce works so damn well, but it really absurdly does."

Caramelization. The slow simmer is the secret -- my mother's ragu is much the same way, even if slightly more complicated. The onion and tomato are good flavors themselves, and the simmering turns some of the sugar in the tomatoes to a wonderfully deep and slightly sweet flavor that is all you need in addition.
posted by tavella at 11:45 AM on December 21, 2024 [7 favorites]

I have travelled to 23 American states and eaten as much food as possible and shopped as much as possible, and I still don't really like the Marcella Hazan's recipes I've made. Sure, I'm in Europe and ingredients are different, but goodness me, I have found far superior recipes that cook far quicker than hers. I have the big Cucina cookbook as well, which is a boon for real-life cooking to feed a family.

I really don't understand how these recipes in the NYT are so well-regarded. I was discussing them with an Italian mate in Naples, who's quite the fun foodie and enjoys reading stuff that debunks the mythology that Italians tell themselves about their cuisine, and his view was that Hazan's style was snooty and old-fashioned, and yet another example of Americans' habit of elevating individuals onto pedestals and creating a moat around them.

I think many recipes in America suit the local palate for whatever reason, but ought to be celebrated as local, instead of, in this case, Italian.
posted by bookbook at 1:24 PM on December 21, 2024 [3 favorites]

I currently live in a part of the US where regular grocery stores stock pasta and sauce in the "world food" section and the good stores are plentiful "Asian markets" with large Hispanic and Middle-eastern sections.

So while this is quite good, I remain bewildered by this country.

(try topping your pasta dish with fried onions and hot chilli oil, by the way)
posted by seraphine at 1:25 PM on December 21, 2024 [1 favorite]

bookbook, I totally get what you are saying, and I only rarely use Marcella's recipes. She is far too dogmatic compared to the vibrancy and inventiveness of real Italian cooking. But her books were such a huge improvement on the even more one-dimensional American-Italian cooking that came before. I think the article's analogy with Chinese-American cuisine is spot-on. And that tomato sauce is a winner.
posted by mumimor at 3:22 PM on December 21, 2024 [1 favorite]

Caramelization

where does the caramelisation happen in this sauce?
posted by ominous_paws at 1:25 AM on December 22, 2024

We also have the Silver Spoon cookbook, and while I find the recipes interesting and at turns surprising, it doesn't get used nearly as much even in its entirety as this sauce recipe.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:15 AM on December 22, 2024

"where does the caramelisation happen in this sauce?"

Most visibly, on the sides of the pan. Sauce spatters a bit on the side above the liquid level, where it starts to caramelize. It's one reason why you don't want to cover it, if you did the condensation would wash that down before the magic happens. But in my experience you get some on the bottom, too. And possibly throughout the sauce, but you can really see it on the sides.
posted by tavella at 8:41 PM on December 22, 2024