Ada Boni: Il Talismano della Felicità

Writing only about two decades after Artusi, another giant of Italian gastronomy, Ada Boni, produced an even more monumental work entitled Il Talismano della Felicità, literally the "Talisman of Happiness". Unlike Artusi, who was basically a talented amateur, Ada Boni was a professional food writer. In 1915, she founded a lady's 'home economic's magazine called Preziosa. Each monthly instalment featured recipes that she had collected from all over Italy, albeit with a strong emphasis on her native Lazio and central Italy more generally. In 1929, she published a compendium of over 2000 recipes from her columns--a truly encyclopedic volume that has had an enormous influence over modern Italian cuisine. (Artusi's masterwork, by contrast, contained 'only' about 600 recipes.)

Boni's was probably the first cookbook published in Italy intended specifically for housewives. Her audience was that educated upper-middle class woman of the time who may have had a housekeeper but could not necessarily afford a cook. And even in those days, this class had pretensions beyond the home. Here is the remarkable opening passage from the Forward of the first edition of her book:

Many of you, ladies, may know how to play the piano well or to sing with exquisite grace. Many of you may have prestigious degrees, may speak foreign languages or be pleasant writers or fine painters. Others of you may be master tennis or golf players, or know how to drive a luxurious automobile with a firm hand. But, alas, if you examine your conscience, I am certain that not all of you can honestly say that you know how to make a perfectly coddled egg!

The sweep of Boni's work is truly impressive, even overwhelming. Il Talismano is organized roughly according to the usual order of a modern Italian meal:

Antipasti, including what she calls 'complex' antipasti--many of them like vol-au-vent, ramequins and mousse showing the strong French influence over Italian cuisine at the time--and 'simple' antipasti, including more typically Italian fare: olives, prosciutto, roasted peppers, hard-boiled eggs and so on.

Then a chapter of condimenti, salse e sughi--all three terms are translated as 'sauce' in English but mean slightly different things. Condimento literally means 'condiment' of course, but beware here of false friends: the verb condire in Italian means both to 'sauce' a pasta or other food and to 'dress' a salad. So this chapter includes not only things like butter maitre d'hotel but also what we today would call gorgonzola sauce for pasta and gnocchi, as well as a condimento of sausage and ricotta for pasta and the famous pesto alla genovese. (Most dishes that combine pasta with a vegetable are examples of the use of condimenti.) Salsa is the usual generic word for 'sauce' and includes classic French sauces like bechamel, mornay, veloute, 'brown' sauce, mayonnaise, hollandaise, caper sauce. None of these salse, however, are used for pasta (except for bechamel for baked pasta dishes). The word for a pasta sauce, in particular a tomato-based pasta sauce, is sugo, and Boni devotes a whole chapter to these, along with another, shorter chapter to a special sub-set of sughi known as ragu', typically made with meat, either in a single piece or minced, and simmered for a long while. The most famous ragu' is probably ragu' alla bolognese, known in English as Bolognese sauce (which, I cannot help mentioning here, in Italy is usually used to dress egg pasta, especially tagliatelle, or short pastas like rigatoni, especially when mixed with bechamel and baked, but never with spaghetti!)

The next chapter is devoted to soups: clear broths, creme, minestre, minestroni, zuppe and zuppe di pesce. Boni explains the sometimes subtle differences among these categories. Creme are not necessarily made with cream--the word refers more to the texture of the soup, and creme are more often than not made from pureed vegetables or legumes sauteed in a soffrito and then diluted with broth. Minestra is probably the 'standard' or default word for soup, often containing pasta or rice, and includes such classics and pasta e fagioli, quadrucci con piselli, pasta e ceci, minestra di riso e cicoria, stracciatella alla romana. Most people are familiar with minestroni, but perhaps fewer understand how many types there are--Boni devotes an entire chapter to the subject (and even so, only scratches the surface). Then she proceeds to zuppe--the word sounds like 'soup' and it does mean soup, but the particular type that includes bread. And, finally, zuppe di pesce--fish soups, a chapter that goes on for 15 pages and presents at least as many recipes.

Then follows an extensive survey of both durum wheat and egg pastas, paste asciutte secche and pasta asciutte all'uovo. Among the former the reader finds now-famous dishes like bucatini all'amatriciana, conchiglie con ricotta e spinaci, maccheroni ai quattro formaggi, penne all'arrabbiata, penne alla vodka, orecchiette ai broccoletti (which she calls orecchiette alla pugliese), spaghetti alla carbonara, spaghetti con aglio e olio, cacio e pepe, trenette col pesto, vermicelli con vongole, and so on. Among the egg pastas are numerous ways to make fettuccine, pappardelle (including my favorite, pappardelle sulla lepre), tagliatelle (like fettuccine but thinner and a bit wider) often served with ragu' alla bolognese, tonnarelli. She also covers stuffed pastas--agnolotti, cannelloni, rotoli di pasta, tortellini--and baked pastas like lasagne (including the two Ur-lasagne of Italian cookery: the Northern style lasagne alla bolognese and the Neapolitan style lasagne di carnevale that was Angelina's speciality!)

The following, slightly shorter chapters, are devoted to rice, gnocchi, and polenta. Of course, there are lots of risotto recipes--including risotto alla milanese, risotto alla sbirraglia, risotto con salsicce, risotto con scampi, risotto primavera--as well as the classic risi e bisi and, of course, that triumph of Neapolitan cuisine, sartu' di riso. But Boni also includes some unusual recipes --especially for her time--like curried rice and riso con ananas. Besides the inevitable potato gnocchi, we find flour gnocchi alla Bismarck, gnocchi alla romana (which she calls gnocchi di semolino), spinach and ricotta gnocchi (also known as gnocchi verdi or ignudi). The polenta chapter includes the wonderful polenta con baccala' alla vicentina, polenta with spareribs and polenta with sausages (both Roman standards) plus polenta pasticciata in forno--polenta baked in layers with meat sauce, like lasagne.

Boni then devotes an entire chapter to fried foods like mozzarella in carrozza, fried rice balls known as suppli' in Rome and as arancini in Sicily) as well as a whole sub-chapter fritti misti, from Emilia-Romagna, Florence, Milan, Naples and Rome, plus a fritto misto di mare. pizzas, calzoni, savory torts and egg dishes.

Then come the intermezzi--or 'in between' dishes, served between the primo (first course, usually a soup or pasta) and the secondo (or second course, usually of meat or fish), These intermezzi has almost disappeared from the modern Italian table in all but the most formal occasions, and include many all-but-forgotten dishes like parmigiano in budino (parmesan cheese pudding), as well as souffles and vol-au-vent.

Then come pizzas, calzoni and savory torts, including the classic pizza margherita and many others. The savory torts include the famous torta pasqualina alla genovese (Genoese Easter spinach pie) and various torte rustiche.

Then come the egg dishes--starting, of course, with frittate of all kinds, but including the lesser known frittatine, or 'little frittatas', fried on both sides like a frittata but including a batter made from milk and flour, which gives the frittatine a lighter texture not unlike quiche. Several omelettes, in the French style, follow, together with poached, shirred and fried eggs (there's even a recipe for fried eggs and bacon!) plus eggs mollette (soft boiled eggs) and finally, hard boiled eggs. Among the egg recipes you'll find uova fritta all'americana--although I doubt many Americans would find it familiar: eggs and ham in tomato sauce.

Seafood dishes follow, including the ever-popular baccala', made in 13 different ways, then eel, all sorts of finny fishes--fried, baked, grilled, poached, simmered in tomato sauce--then crustaceans, mollusks--squid and octopus, of course--and snails.

Meat dishes follow, including a surprisingly large assortment of beef dishes, veal, lamb, pork, poultry, rabbit and frog, game--including what I think of the most typical Italian game dish, cinghiale (wild boar) but also venison, of course, and hare, then the famous quinto quarto: the offal cuts so beloved by Romans like coda alla vaccinara. Among the meat dishes you'll find classics like bistecca alla fiorentina, bollito, brasati (pot roasts), involtini, saltimbocca alla romana and other scallopine dishes, polpette (meatballs) and polpettoni (meatloafs), spezzatini (stews) costolette (chops) including the Roman classic scottadito, cotolette (cutlets), ossobuco alla milanese, abbacchio al forno (roasted baby lamb, a Roman favorite), vitello tonnato, cotechino, pollo alla cacciatora, pollo alla diavola, various turkey dishes (yes, Italians eat turkey--mostly the breast, either roasted or cut into scallopine). The offal dishes include trippa alla romana and other sorts of tripe, liver, sweetbreads, brains, lungs, kidneys--you name it.

Salads, vegetable and bean dishes follow in the next chapter. then fruits, then desserts: cakes, pastries, pies, ice cream...

Suffice it to say, Il Talismano covers the length and breadth of Italian cookery. While Artusi is clearly a work from another time, in Boni's recipe you see Italian cuisine, as we know it today, clearly taking shape. The recipes, too, are more modern: they give measurements--precise ones by Italian standards--cooking times and detailed instructions. Artusi, in more traditional Italian style, will tell you to being by making a soffrito with onion and "the other requisite ingredients"--assuming you know what these are--Boni assumes nothing, taking you by the hand and leading you through the cooking process. No wonder that Il Talismano remains a standard cookbook for home cooks in Italy today, with a status similar to The Joy of Cooking in the US. It is (or traditionally was) the gift that mothers-in-law gave to newly wed brides, in the hopes that she would learn to feed her son well... (And you'd better believe that Angelina gave my mother a copy, too, when she married my father!) It is not an exaggeration to say that you can find Il Talismano in just about every Italian kitchen.

Il Talismano--or a version of it--can be found in English. It goes by the name of The Talisman Italian Cookbook and is available from amazon.com and other outlets. Unfortunately, however, the book is much abridged (300 pages as opposed to the original 1053) and contains additional, unauthentic recipes of the Italian-American variety, which the American publishers thought were needed to attract readership. Still, it's worth a buy.

Post-scriptum: As encyclopedic as Il Talismano was, Ada Boni went on to publish more cookbooks in her lifetime, notably La cucina regionale italiana, Italian Regional Cooking, and an ode to the cuisine of her native Rome, La cucina romana. Here monthly Preziosa continued to publish until 1959. She died in 1973, at the age of 82.

What motivated Boni to produce such a prodigiuos body of work? As the title of her masterwork suggests, she was motivated by a desire to promote happiness since, in her own words:

There can be no true happiness if such an essential part of our daily lives as eating is neglected. Cooking is the most gay of arts and the most pleasant of sciences.

Spaghetti fatti in casa con pomodori al forno

This dish of homemade egg pasta spaghetti with roasted tomato sauce is one of my favorite dishes from one of my favorite cookbook authors, Giuliano Bugialli. The sauce is simple to make and, if you use dry spaghetti (or store-bought fresh) the dish becomes extremely simple to execute. But if you're feeling a bit ambitious, homemade pasta brings it to another level.

To make the spaghetti: I usually make life easy for myself by using my trusty KitchenAid mixer to form and knead the pasta dough and then the pasta attachments to roll out and cut the dough into various pasta shapes. To make fresh spaghetti for 4 persons, add 3 cups (350g) of flour into the mixing bowl with a pinch of salt, and turn on the mixer with the dough paddle attached and mix at slow speed (setting 1-2). Then add, one by one, 3 eggs. (If you are very hungry or not following the pasta with a secondo, then use 4 cups (500g) of flour and 4 eggs.) Once the eggs are well incorporated, switch to the dough hook and continue to mix, first continuing at a slow speed, then turning it up a notch to a moderate speed (setting 3 or 4) until the dough forms a smooth surfaced, uniform ball. Depending on various factors, including the exact size of the eggs and the ambient humidity in your kitchen, one of two things may happen: either the ball will be very sticky and wet, in which case you can add a bit more flour until the dough becomes firmer, or the dough will remain too dry to form a ball, in which case you can add a bit of water. To make the rolling and cutting easier later on, you can add a drop of oil, before adding the eggs although purists frown on this. Take the ball of dough out of the mixing bowl and place it on a lightly floured spianatoia or other dry surface and knead it by hand for a few minutes until the dough has reached the right consistency--smooth and pliable and yet still firm. (If you find that the dough is too wet, sprinkle it with flour and knead the additional flour into the dough.) Then allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes wrapped in plastic wrap. This rest will 'relax' the dough and make it much easier to work with, but if you lack time, it is not an absolutely necessary step.

Then put the pasta roller attachment on the mixer, set at the widest setting and, taking a piece of dough corresponding to one of the eggs used to make the dough (in other words, if you used 3 eggs, cut the dough into three pieces), flatten it out with your hand or a rolling pin and then pass it through the roller, which will turn the dough ball into a rather thick sheet. If the pasta has a smooth consistency (which is should if it has been properly kneaded and rested) then lightly flour the pasta sheet, turn the roller to the next, slightly narrower setting, and pass the sheet through the roller once again. For spaghetti, you can stop here or go to the third setting if you want your spaghetti a bit thinner. (When making other types of pasta like tagliatelle, fettucine, lasagne or ravioli, you would go thinner still.) Repeat the process with the other pieces of dough--which you will have kept wrapped in plastic so they don't dry out.

Lay out the pasta sheet to dry on a towel or--my preferred method--on a baking rack. The baking rack will allow air to flow on both sides of the pasta, so it will dry more quickly and evenly. In either case, however, it is a good idea to turn the sheets over every once and while so they dry evenly--the top will always dry more quickly than the bottom, even when using the rack. The pasta is dry enough when it feels 'leathery' to the touch but not brittle. If it is not dry enough, the pasta stands will tend to stick together when you cut the sheet, while the dough will become unworkable if dries out. (If you notice that splits are beginning to open on the sides of the pasta sheets, then it is getting too dry, but if you act quickly enough, the dough can still be used.) With some practice (and a few inevitable misfires) recognizing the right degree of dryness will become second-nature.

Once dried to the right point, pass the pasta sheets through the cutting attachment. The pasta attachment set for the Kitchenaid mixer, as well as most pasta 'machines', come with two cutting attachments, one for thin pasta like spaghetti and one for ribbon pasta like tagliatelle. The one for thin pasta will be the roller with cutting blades at narrow intervals looking something like a comb. As the pasta sheet passes through the roller, catch the strands of pasta with your open hand and gently hold them up so they do not fold onto each other. Lay them out on a floured surface (or back on the rack). Given how thick the pasta sheets for spaghetti are, it is possible that some (or a lot) of the strands will stick together. If this happens, then you can just gently pull the strands apart. It's a bit tedious but not too difficult.

To make the sauce: For 4 people, take 1kg (2 lbs.) of very ripe tomatoes. For this dish, I found some nice 'heirloom' plum tomatoes from a local farm that had lots of flavor. Plum tomatoes are best for this dish, but any type--so long as they are nice and ripe--will do. Cut the plum tomatoes horizontally into thick slices. (If using larger tomatoes, such as 'beefsteaks', cut them into chunks.) Then layer the tomato slices or chunks in an oiled baking dish or overproof braiser. (I find a braiser works well, as it is deep enough to contain the pasta later one). On top of your first layer, lay a few anchovy filets (optional) and (my addition) some slivers of garlic. Season with salt, freshly ground black pepper and some red pepper flakes, to taste, and then drizzle over a bit of olive oil. Then repeat until you've used up your tomatoes. Pour a generous amount of olive oil on top of it all--Bugialli calls for a cup of oil (250ml) in all. It will look like an awful lot of oil, but remember you will need that oil to dress the pasta later on, not just to cook the tomatoes. Place the tomatoes in hot oven (2oo C, 400 F) and roast for about an hour. (Another personal twist--Bugialli calls for only 20 minutes in the oven, but the longer time allows the tomatoes to reduce further, which really concentrates their flavor.) This sauce can be made ahead and then gently reheated when you are ready to serve the pasta.

To complete the dish: Boil the fresh spaghetti in plentiful, well-salted water. When it is still quite al dente--and this should take only 2-4 minutes, as fresh pasta cooks much more quickly than dry--scoop the spaghetti out of the boiling water with a spaghetti fork, transfer it to the pan with the tomatoes, together with a good handful of chopped or torn basil (another personal touch--Bugialli calls for chopped parsley). Mix well and serve immediately.

NB: Don't drain the pasta well--allow some of the pasta water to cling to the pasta, which will thin out the sauce a bit and help it to mix with the pasta. If the pasta still seems dry, then just add a ladleful of the pasta water. If you don't have a spaghetti fork, you can always drain the pasta in a colander, but remember to reserve a measuring cup of pasta water to thin out the sauce.

NOTES: Bugialli's recipe can be found in The Foods of Italy. According to Bugialli, this dish is the direct descendant of the very first pasta and tomato dish that is documented in the historical record, from an 1830 cookbook by Vincenzo Corrado.(more on him below). In that original dish, the short stubby 'maccheroni' were baked, still dry, with olive and fresh tomatoes, for a result that is a bit stodgy. This dish--I'm not sure if it's Bugialli's invention or a 'find' from Neapolitan cooking--is a wonderful adaption, more agreeable to modern tastes.

The thing I love about this dish is that roasting the tomatoes gives even fairly insipid tomatoes a new lease on life by concentrating their flavor. And there is something about roasting that provides 'depth' that no amount of simmer ever would.

If you don't have a KitchenAid mixer, of course you can make the pasta dough in the same way either with a food processor (being very careful, however, not to over-process) and using a pasta 'machine' to roll out the dough. Of, if you were my nonna Angelina, you would make the pasta dough on a board and roll it out and cut it by hand--but that's a recipe for another day. And, fi you're not in the mood to make your own spaghetti, no worries--just use store-bought spaghetti, linguine or bucatini. And I'm sure that even a stubby pasta--the original choice anyway--would work very nicely.

The original source for the predessor recipe, Vincenzo Corrado, is considered the greatest Neapolitan gastronome of the 18th century and early 19th centuries. His first masterwork, Il cuoco galante, published in 1773, presented the aristocratic, French-influenced cuisine of the Neapolitan nobility of the time. Much later in life, in 1832, he published a two volume work of over 600 recipes, known as i Pranzi giornalieri, or The Daily Dinners, was his attempt to adapt this cuisine for daily life. The title derives from the fact that the book actually offers recipes for dinners for each day of 16 weeks out of the year, four for each season. It is from this latter book that the recipe was taken. This books also contains the first known written recipes for parmigiana di melanzane--Corrado was quite a guy!

The other great Neapolitan gastronome, Ippolito Cavalcanti, lived in the 19th century, when Neapolitan cuisine took on many of the features that we consider typical today. He is well worth his own post, however, one day. Works by both Corrado and Cavalcanti, along with many other classic cookbooks, are available from Libreria Napolis, a Neapolitan publishing house, presumably only in Italian. I have no idea if they will ship abroad. Unfortunately Corrado's book is not available, as far as I can tell, on amazon.com.

Pellegrino Artusi, La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene

This is an Italian cookbook like no other. Artusi--it is quite common to call this book by the author's name rather than its title--is to Italian cooking what Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire is to the French: indispensable.

The author, Pellegrino Artusi, was born in 1820 near Forli, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, about halfway between Bologna and Rimini. He was not a professional cook but rather a business man for most of his life, making a fortune as a silk merchant. It was after he retired in mid-life that Artusi dedicated himself to write this classic work. He finished the book in 1881 but could not find a publisher, so he used his own money to self-publish the first edition. He went on to publish 14 editions in his lifetime, selling over 200,000 copies, an incredible number for the time.

Artusi is more than just a cookbook. Writing only about 10 years after the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy, Artusi assembled recipes from many different regions of the new country. His section on pastas, for example, includes tagliatelle, "maccheroni" alla napoletana, maccheroni alla bolognese, pasta con le sarde from Sicily, gnocchi alla romana, passatelli from his native Emilia-Romagna, and so on. In a sense, this book was an attempt to unify the peninsula culinarily just has it had been so recently unified politically (although his attention is not evenly divided; northern dishes far outnumber southern ones). At the time, there was really no such thing as "Italian" cooking, only cooking that was Roman, Ligurian, Neapolitan, Milanese, Bolognese, etc. Artusi even included a glossary of Tuscan cooking terms which he was not sure all Italians would understand. At the time, Italy was also still not fully united linguistically. The Tuscan 'vulgate' had been chosen as the standard form of the Italian language, but most people still spoke their regional dialects. In this project, Artusi was thankfully not totally successful, as Italian cuisine remains even today quite regional--which is one reason it is so wonderfully rich.

One thing I find fascinating about Artusi is that so many of his classic recipes are still enjoyed today: cappelletti in brodo, tortellini, potato gnocchi, pappardelle sulla lepre, risotto nero, frittata di cipolla, scaloppine, polpette (meatballs), osso buco, vitello tonnato, bistecca alla fiorentina, arista (a Florentine pork roast), vegetable sformati, cipolline agrodolci, piselli col prosciutto and insalata russa among many others.

But there is also much in this book that illustrates the evolution of Italian cooking since Artusi's time. He dedicates an entire chapter of this book to fried foods and another just to boiled meats, for example. (Aspics figure prominently, too.) Of course, Italians still eat all sorts of fritti and bolliti today, but you would be hard-pressed to find a modern cookbook where they figure so prominently. His notions of nutrition reflect his times. He lists the 'nutritive value' of various kinds of meat (game and beef are best, fish the least nutritious, he claims) but castigates the Tuscans for being too fond of vegetables, warning that excessive vegetable consumption will give them a 'flaccid constitution'. But perhaps we should not be too quick to dismiss Artusi's advice, since he lived to be 91.

Perhaps the evolution of Italian cuisine is most evident in Artusi's suggested monthly menus. For a dinner in June, for example, he proposes the following:

Minestra in brodo: Stricchetti alla bolognese
Fritto: Fegato di vitello di latte, animelle, cervello e funghi
Umido: Piccioni coi piselli
Tramesso: Zucchine ripiene
Arrosto: Galletti di primo canto e insalata
Dolci: Bocca di dama, Gelato di visciole
Frutta e formaggio: Frutta di stagione e pasticcini in pasta beignet

It is the structure of this meal, more than the dishes themselves, that shows how Italian cuisine has changed. Besides the sheer number of courses, they do not follow the modern structure of antipasto, primo, secondo, contorno and dessert where each course is defined by its principal ingredient. Artusi structures his meal by cooking method: the first course is a soup (a kind of pasta in brodo), followed by a mixed fry of veal liver, sweetbreads, brain and mushrooms, then stewed pigeon with peas, then a stuffed and baked zucchini dish as a 'tramesso' or intermezzo, then a roast chicken with salad, then sweets (lady fingers and cherry ice cream) and finally fruits and cheeses. (People obviously had hearty appetites back then...)

These arcana not withstanding, Artusi is not just a historical curiosity. After more than a century, it is still--along with Ada Boni's Il Talismano della Felicita'--one of the standard Italian cookbooks. No Italian cookbook collection is complete without it. Artusi has been translated into many languages, and is available in English on amazon.com. If you read Italian, the entire text is also available online at Wikisource.

Due sono le funzioni principali della vita: la nutrizione e la propagazione della specie; a coloro quindi che, rivolgendo la mente a questi due bisogni dell'esistenza, li studiano e suggeriscono norme onde vengano sodisfatti nel miglior modo possibile, per render meno triste la vita stessa, e per giovare all'umanità, sia lecito sperare che questa, pur se non apprezza le loro fatiche, sia almeno prodiga di un benigno compatimento.

--P. Artusi, from the Preface of La scienza in cucina