The Lakes Kitchen - The Italian Lakes - page 485

Home Cooking
Up until the early 20th century, the only Italian cookery books in circulation were written
by men: chefs, stewards and courtiers working in the wealthiest city households with the
finest ingredients. Cucina casalinga (home cooking) had no place at this elite table. That is,
until the deprivation of two world wars pushed middle-class housewives out of the kitchen
and into print.
The first Italian cookery book written by a woman was Come Posso Mangiar Bene?
(How Can I Eat Well?) by home cook Giulia Tamburini and published in Milan, by Hoepli,
in 1900. She was to be the first in a long line of northern Italian housewives - including,
most recently, Anna del Conte, whose biography, Risotto With Nettles, recalls her wartime
Milanese childhood and its influence on her cooking - who valued good food but, by ne-
cessity, had to work within a limited budget.
Thanks to them, a simple, filling primo (first course) of minestra (soup), gnocchi or
risotto now sits at the heart of the northern Italian meal. 'Make-do' classics such as monde-
ghili (Milanese meatballs made with leftover chopped, boiled meat), minestrone (a rich ve-
getable soup including rice and pancetta) and pasta rasa (egg pasta cooked in a soup with
tomatoes, beans, potatoes, onions and garlic) were elevated. Whether it came in the form of
soup, rice or pasta, minestra allowed middle-class families to live with a modicum of com-
fort. The more expensive second course was a secondary concern: liver, or butter-fried eggs
during the week, roast chicken or veal cutlets on Sundays.
According to Futurist Filippo Marinetti food wasn't simply fuel for the body, but an aesthetic experience
that affected the way people thought, dreamt and acted. In a modern era of molecular gastronomy, recipes
from The Futurist Cookbook (1932) are no longer look quite so kooky.