A Museum in Rome Narrates Italian History Through Cookbooks and Kitchenware | Hacker News Reader

A Museum in Rome Narrates Italian History Through Cookbooks and Kitchenware

smithsonianmag.com

50 pointsbenbreen9 comments

The museum's cookbook collection predictably stops just short of Marcella Hazan. Italy's most influential modern cookbook author is almost unknown in her own country. Even in her hometown of Cesenatico the local hero is Pantani.

Hazan is widely viewed as the person who converted perceptions of Italian food worldwide from 1950s spaghetti-and-meatballs to modern and sophisticated (and mostly northern) Italian cuisine. Stuff like prosciutto, risotto, etc. She is credited for singlehandedly popularizing balsamic vinegar outside of Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcella_Hazan

This is kind of like France having a museum that doesn't include Julia Child because she didn't cater to the French. Only it's worse because Hazan actually is Italian.

At least, the has been recognised by the italian government who made her a Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity.

What a surprise seeing Marcella mentioned on HN! She was my grandmother cousin but I've never actually met her because she left Italy before I was born. It's a pity that she's virtually unknown in Italy, you will not even find her books in international book stores. My uncle told me once that her son, Giuliano Hazan, is preserving her legacy in Italy with cooking workshops that he holds in Verona once every year.

Wow, I live like 20 miles away from Cesenatico and have never heard of her in my 30 years. Even googling her name only brings up foreign results, zero italian pages about her in the first two SERP.

Where are you, Cesena? Rimini?

It's pretty amazing. A few years back the mayor of Cesenatico put up a commemorative sign outside her former home on the canal. Then a year or two later it was torn down without permission, probably by the owner of the house, and nobody complained or even noticed. IMHO Hazan is easily the most important person, world-wide, to come out of Cesenatico, and yet there's an entire museum dedicated to Pantani. Nobody has heard of her.

Rimini.

I guess I'll have to take a trip one weekend and go see what's left.

There's nothing. Though I think the local culinary institute has renamed themselves after her.

It’s a museum about Italy and not the US after all

Referencing the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30739976 (27 points, 6 commments, 31 days ago)

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