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June 2 - June 9, 2002 |
U of T prints Artusi
Famous cookbook originally printed in 1891
By Gil Kezwer
Italians take food seriously. And the University of Toronto Press is giving its imprimatur to that noble subject by publishing a lavishly illustrated version of Pellegrino Artusi's classic 1891 cookbook, La Scienza in Cucina e L'Arte di Mangiar Bene (The Science of cookery and the Art of Eating Well).
Artusi's cookbook will be the first volume of the University of Toronto Press's The Da Ponte Library. The series is being sponsored by Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Fondazione Cassamarca in Treviso. Among its 100 titles in translation will be Cesare Beccaria's Del delitti e della pene (Of Crime and Punishment), and Norberto Bobbio's Politica e cultura (Politics and Culture).
The series is being edited by Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella, both from the University of California at Los Angeles.
"This is the greatest Italian cookbook, the first which was not about regional specialties," explained Prof. Ciavolella. "It was done 30 years after the unification of Italy, and they thought even the kitchen should be unified. It was a masterpiece of Italian prose. It is a work of literature and not just a book of cuisine."
About 70 percent of the books in the U of T series have never been translated into English, said Ciavolella. "There's no reason to retranslate Dante."
The new edition of La Scienza in Cucina is illustrated Giuliano Della Casa, a well-known painter and ceramist born in Modena in 1942, The artist will be present at a reception being held June 4 at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura (496 Huron St.). The exhibit of his watercolour illustrations continues through August 23.
Besides Della Casa's illustrations, the U of T edition of the classic Italian cookbook includes a vast variety of delicacies like Cappelletti, Saltimbocca alla Romana, Vitello Tonnato, Gnocchi alla Romana, Cacciucco (Livorno's fiery fish stew), Mamme Ripiene (stuffed artichokes), Ricciarelli di Siena, and Nocino. They're all here, along with hundreds of other forgotten recipes and clever variations on perennial favourites of the Italian table.
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