A Merchant, a Cookbook, a New Nation of Italy

Text by Nam Cheah

Pellegrino Artusi collected stories and recipes in his travels. Many were from his home state, Emilia-Romagna, and Tuscany. Photo by Klaus Nielsen from Pexels.

In much of Italy, Pellegrino Artusi’s 1891 cookbook, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, is a household item. His philosophy of “a lifestyle dedicated to the art of eating well” is ingrained in Italians’ daily life. Interestingly, this cookbook author was not a cook, he was a businessman. So how did Artusi become the author of such an influential volume?

Artusi’s interest in food can be, in large part, attributed to his birthplace. He was born to a wealthy merchant family in Forlimpopoli in 1820, a town in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. 

Emilia-Romagna is known as Italy’s food valley, with many items wholly produced within the geographic area, from source ingredients to production. This ties into another one of Artusi’s philosophy found throughout his cookbook: to use the best raw ingredients locally available.

Before Italy’s unification, Artusi’s family business—and then in finance, in Florence, after the family was robbed along with Forlimpopoli’s upper crust at theater—gave him the opportunity to travel around the country, as we know it now. He would collect recipes during his travel, turning what was once passed down orally into written instructions with witty anecdotes. 

Even then, of the 475 recipes he originally collected and published, the majority of them are from the Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions, the ones he knew best. Nonetheless, as one of the first cookbooks that addressed Italy as a united country, it was monumental in giving the young nation a common language of food and a national cuisine.

Pellegrino never married, living in Florence alone after his parents passed and sisters married, albeit with a cook and a butler. When the book was completed, Artusi was already 71 years old, and there was no interest from publishers. He decided to self-publish the first edition, which became widely popular. The cookbook’s natural assumption of users’ familiarity in the kitchen and instructional take made it geared for the middle class, housewives and families without a cook, which was unusual at the time. But that was exactly why it became a bestseller. People loved Artusi’s witty anecdotes and collection of recipes, with many sending their own to be added. This contributed to the growth of the recipes from 475 to 790 in the 20 years between the cookbook’s publication and Pellegrino’s death in 1911.

Many modern Italian and international cooks are inspired by Artusi. The Swiss cook Pietro Leemann, who opened the first Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant in Europe, said he was influenced by Artusi’s cookbook in a recent interview in So Wine So Food.

Bologna local Luca Musolesi, the founder of Gelato Expert, also recalls Artusi’s cookbook in the house when he was growing up.

 “We always had a copy of Artusi, and I also have one myself,” he says. “But it was more of a reference for some things to see what was written there, but in my family we had much more modern regional cookbooks that were more interesting, even if some things are still the same the problem of Artusi is that most of the measurements are not easy to reproduce, so it’s more of a cooking like our grandmothers used to do without being as precise as we are today, so for some recipes is totally fine, for others 100 people will make 100 different things from the same recipe. All of this is before 2000, where food websites weren’t popular yet, then I think the internet took a bigger place and actual books were more a reference for local and traditional recipes.”

Livia De Giovanni, a cook who works for the Flavours Holiday, says that the book is not only a great source of recipe but a historic read.

“I live in Faenza, in the center of Romagna, just 30 kilometers from Forlimpopoli, where Pellegrino Artusi conceived the book,” she says. “Even if it is an historical book, it is the first cookbook, as useful as ever. Each family has a copy of it here. Every recipe from this area is named ‘all’ uso di Romagna’...We refer to this book for the best ragù sauce recipe. I have learned how to cook it for 5 to 6 hours, to obtain an amazing flavor. It is fun to read it and discover the origins of all of our traditional pasta and of the names they were given.”

The cookbook was also a staple in restaurants. Claudia Colvin recalls it being an important book in her grandparents’ businesses.

Italian food historian Claudia Colvin shares this photo of her Nonno Mario, a chef and Artusi devotee, showing her mother how to prepare chicken for barbecuing. Photo courtesy Claudia Colvin.

“My grandad was from Piacenza and used the book religiously, like his Bible, referring to it a lot and used many of its recipes,” she says. “His family opened a restaurant in Rome that reflects Emilia-Romagna traditions and serves many of Artusi’s recipes.”

The restaurant, Al Picchio, is still in operation, near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. It’s now run by the founder’s nephews. Colvin’s grandparents had met in Rome and her grandmother was also from a family with important cooking traditions. 

“She had a trattoria (in those days it was basically a working class lunch break place), so they really care about their food,” Colvin says. “Grandma started using Artusi’s cookbook because of Grandpa and many of her recipes draw inspiration from Artusi. His approach to cooking is also more methodical and he’d take the more time-consuming route, which comes from Artusi, with a more old school method written before people have electric equipment. Whereas Grandma likes to do it the faster way.”

Claudia has made it her project to translate her grandmother’s recipes to English, which she publishes on her website.

“[My grandfather] gave a copy to my mother when she got married with the quote, ‘for your happiness and that of Andrew, from mum and dad.’ One of my mum’s favourite recipes is from the cookbook, the Pasticcio di Maccheroni dell'Artusi, Artusi’s macaroni pie, which Grandpa only made during special occasions as it takes a lot of time.”

While it seems that Artusi’s recipes did not hold the hands of its readers in terms of cooking, the book was a comprehensive compilation that still serves as a guide for Italians today. It perfectly encapsulated home cooking in that era, allowing each new generation a chance to go back to the roots. Not only can we learn about a century old way of cooking but also get a glimpse of life and the table of Italy, more specifically Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, in the late 19th century.