was proving to be a fellow patriot. So I was happy to help him without charging him anything.” 97
As for the specifics of Artusi’s culinary environment, many clues indicate that he used his modest kitchen as a laboratory equipped withan affordable coal-burning stove and well stocked with implements and utensils. Unfortunately, unlike more modern books, Artusi docs not include a section describing the kitchen equipment he considered essential. An inventory is possible nonetheless. A paragraph in his recipe for
stufatino di petto di vitella di latte coi finocchi
(stewed breast of milk-fed veal with fennel) is, in this respect, quite illuminating: “When I say ‘saucepans’,” Artusi expounds, “I mean copper pans, well coated inside with a layer of tin. People can say what they like, but copper, when kept clean, is always preferable to iron or earthenware, which get too hot and tend to burn the food cooking in them. Earthenware cracks and absorbs grease, and after some use starts to give off a bad smell.” 98
Other ubiquitous utensils are the wooden mixing spoon and, above all, the
mezzaluna
, to whose versatility
Scienza in cucina
could be considered a monumental ode. Then, of course, there are the sieves. Sooner or later, not merely vegetables but also fish and meat are pounded in a mortar and passed through a sieve. Bizarre as it may sound, a strainer can also do as well as a baking dish. “To bake,” Artusi writes in the first recipe for
bocca di dama
(lady cake, recipe 584), “pour into a copper baking pan greased with butter and dusted with confectioners’ sugar and flour. Or you can use a strainer with a wooden ring, and cover the bottom with a sheet of paper.” 99
The most colorful testimony of Artusi’s painstaking involvement in the actual testing of his recipes – and of the strenuous efforts of his two kitchen aides to make the most of the master’s verbal explications – comes perhaps from Domenico Amaducci, a young fellow citizen from Forlimpopoli who, during his military service in Florence, visited repeatedly with the white-haired gastronome. Artusi, for his part, used Amaducci as a guinea pig: “finally I was asked to sit at the table,” recounted Amaducci of one such visit, “or more precisely, a small little round table where there was room for two persons, and I was forced to sit there observing all rules of etiquette. ‘The meal is served!’ said Artusi who paced restlessly between the dining room and the kitchen, which had been transformed (as I would later see) into a well-equippedlaboratory with two earthenware stoves … Before taking leave, I wanted to meet the two ‘martyrs’ of the stoves … ‘Did you enjoy the meal?’ they asked me. I answered with a military expression: ‘I’ll sign off on that!’ ‘Lucky you. We’re here almost all day long working on these stoves and our master drives us crazy with his continuous experiments.” 100
It is doubtful that Artusi ever touched a kitchen utensil, that he ever lit a fire under a pot or finely chopped or gently stirred anything. These tasks, as can be gathered from the Amaducci story, were entrusted to his housekeeper and cook, Francesco Ruffilli and Marietta Sabbatini. Artusi’s role was exclusively that of a taster, a pronouncer of verdicts, approving or disapproving the domestically re-created gustatory experiences he had been exposed or alerted to in the outside world. His debt of gratitude for the cares of his two “semper fideles” would neither go unacknowledged nor remain unpaid. In his will, Artusi bequeathed to Marietta “5,000 lire, free of inheritance tax, the complete bed from my bedroom, including my yellow silk bedcover, and, as a memento, my long gold chain and watch,” and to Francesco, “3,000 lire, likewise free of any inheritance tax or withholding, and, as a memento, my gold watch, which you wind with a little key.” For Marietta, he actually goes a significant step further and enters
As for the specifics of Artusi’s culinary environment, many clues indicate that he used his modest kitchen as a laboratory equipped withan affordable coal-burning stove and well stocked with implements and utensils. Unfortunately, unlike more modern books, Artusi docs not include a section describing the kitchen equipment he considered essential. An inventory is possible nonetheless. A paragraph in his recipe for
stufatino di petto di vitella di latte coi finocchi
(stewed breast of milk-fed veal with fennel) is, in this respect, quite illuminating: “When I say ‘saucepans’,” Artusi expounds, “I mean copper pans, well coated inside with a layer of tin. People can say what they like, but copper, when kept clean, is always preferable to iron or earthenware, which get too hot and tend to burn the food cooking in them. Earthenware cracks and absorbs grease, and after some use starts to give off a bad smell.” 98
Other ubiquitous utensils are the wooden mixing spoon and, above all, the
mezzaluna
, to whose versatility
Scienza in cucina
could be considered a monumental ode. Then, of course, there are the sieves. Sooner or later, not merely vegetables but also fish and meat are pounded in a mortar and passed through a sieve. Bizarre as it may sound, a strainer can also do as well as a baking dish. “To bake,” Artusi writes in the first recipe for
bocca di dama
(lady cake, recipe 584), “pour into a copper baking pan greased with butter and dusted with confectioners’ sugar and flour. Or you can use a strainer with a wooden ring, and cover the bottom with a sheet of paper.” 99
The most colorful testimony of Artusi’s painstaking involvement in the actual testing of his recipes – and of the strenuous efforts of his two kitchen aides to make the most of the master’s verbal explications – comes perhaps from Domenico Amaducci, a young fellow citizen from Forlimpopoli who, during his military service in Florence, visited repeatedly with the white-haired gastronome. Artusi, for his part, used Amaducci as a guinea pig: “finally I was asked to sit at the table,” recounted Amaducci of one such visit, “or more precisely, a small little round table where there was room for two persons, and I was forced to sit there observing all rules of etiquette. ‘The meal is served!’ said Artusi who paced restlessly between the dining room and the kitchen, which had been transformed (as I would later see) into a well-equippedlaboratory with two earthenware stoves … Before taking leave, I wanted to meet the two ‘martyrs’ of the stoves … ‘Did you enjoy the meal?’ they asked me. I answered with a military expression: ‘I’ll sign off on that!’ ‘Lucky you. We’re here almost all day long working on these stoves and our master drives us crazy with his continuous experiments.” 100
It is doubtful that Artusi ever touched a kitchen utensil, that he ever lit a fire under a pot or finely chopped or gently stirred anything. These tasks, as can be gathered from the Amaducci story, were entrusted to his housekeeper and cook, Francesco Ruffilli and Marietta Sabbatini. Artusi’s role was exclusively that of a taster, a pronouncer of verdicts, approving or disapproving the domestically re-created gustatory experiences he had been exposed or alerted to in the outside world. His debt of gratitude for the cares of his two “semper fideles” would neither go unacknowledged nor remain unpaid. In his will, Artusi bequeathed to Marietta “5,000 lire, free of inheritance tax, the complete bed from my bedroom, including my yellow silk bedcover, and, as a memento, my long gold chain and watch,” and to Francesco, “3,000 lire, likewise free of any inheritance tax or withholding, and, as a memento, my gold watch, which you wind with a little key.” For Marietta, he actually goes a significant step further and enters
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