Marcella Hazan: Memoir of a classic Italian chef

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His apartment, at the Sherry-Netherland, was not too far from ours, and in a few minutes, he was at my door. I had never had him in a class, and I was concerned that he might distract us with his routines. I shouldn’t have worried. He was quiet, attentive, and helpful. But he did get an opportunity to do an unscripted number. I was demonstrating the Italian method of cooking a roast on top of the stove. There were six students crowding around me in the kitchen, plus Danny, plus my corpulent new assistant, Maria. The wall telephone rang. He asked if he could answer it for me. “Yes, please,” I said. Pamela kept her tape recorder running and the following is a transcript of Danny’s side of that phone conversation:

Allo? Eh? Yah, mah, whosa callin?

Wha, whazza your name?

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Misses Horowis? En you lika to talk to Misses Hazan?

You wanta ask a question about the cookoobook?

Ehh, today sheeza very busy now, yah, if you aska me I will be able to tell you.

Oh, in da recipe where you hava da meat sauce bolognes?

You mada da sauce?

Izza too salty?

Well, in dat case you want me to tell you what to do?

Why it waza too salty?

Eh, you puta two teaspoon of salt?

Ahah! Ehh, three-quarters pounda meat en two teaspoon salt is too mucha salt? Oh my!

I tell you whacha do, Misses Horowis. You hava ... you hava kosher salt?

Izza da big salt ... you hava dat?

Video
Teaching classic Italian cooking
Oct. 7: Italian cooking expert Marcella Hazan reflects on her years of teaching others to cook classic Italian dishes.
Today show
Now da next time you maka dis dish you taka four teaspoons of salt. Four! Put three teaspoons in a cuppa water and put it in de iceabox. Use half a teaspoona salt in de, in de sauce, en, iffa not too salty, putta little more salt, if not throw da water with da salt into da sink en den it will not be too salty.

Two teaspoona regular salt. I think datsa mistake. Yes. No, no in da book, izza mistake of da salt you are using. You’re using too salty salt. There are different kinds of salt, you know. You can buy salty salt and not-so-salty salt.

Iffa you go to the place and you aska, “Mister, I lika to hava some salt, but not too salty,” en den dey give dis, en den you can use two teaspoons.

It came outa nice? Ehh, you see Misses Horowis, yourra smart lady. Whatsa nice Jewish lady makin wit Italian food?

Aha! You see, mah, you not using da right salt! Kosher salt, dat izza da one, izza not too salty. Ma, if you usa no kosher salt, if you usa just kinda salt [mumbles] ... aha, aha?

It say in da recipe two teaspoons of salt? Eh, heh ... Misses Horowis, I lika to ask you a question, when you cook, you taste? Mah, when you taste, you finda izza too salty, and no usa so much!

Yeh, datsa right, you put a potato in de thing, if izza too salty, when it finishes throw outa da sauce an eata da potato.

Eheh ... eheh ... eheh ... eheh ... ahah ... ahah ... izza nice. I will teller becoz she willa be very happy to know dat you maka da sauce now.

All right. Bye bye, en tank you.

I laughed along with the others while wondering if it was my accent that Danny was mimicking. “Is that how I sound to others?” I thought. It is true that sometimes people misunderstood me, but I am not sure the fault was always mine. I was teaching a dessert, and when I asked a student to separate two eggs that had been put on the table, she just moved them apart. “Is it me or is it her?” I asked myself. “Isn’t ‘separate’ the correct word?” When your grip on a language is uncertain, it is easy to think that you are the one who has slipped.

I had a call one morning from a woman at Giuliano’s school who said she was organizing an event for parents and children.

“There is going to be a buffet,” she said, “and I was hoping that you could contribute a dish.”

“Certainly,” I said.

“Could you bring some Swedish meatballs?”

“Oh, I don’t know what they are.”

“Can you make a tuna casserole?”

“I am afraid not.”

“How about a chicken casserole?”

“I don’t even know what you mean by ‘casserole.’?”

“Well, all right,” she said, sounding somewhat cross. “Can you contribute a dozen bottles of Coke?”

“Certainly.”

“Can you bring them next Thursday evening?”

“I’ll have to send them with someone, because on Thursday evening I have a cooking class.”

“Of course, I understand. I hope you are making progress.”

On another occasion, I was giving a demonstration class at Boston University with a small tasting. The tasting portions were small, but the audience was large. I had a lot of cooking to do and a lot of prepping. It was my custom, in such circumstances, to cook everything in full view of the audience, but to complete all but a small part of the prepping backstage in advance, keeping the lesson within reasonable time limits. That evening in Boston I was doing a fish stew with squid, and I had earlier held back just enough squid to use for the prepping demonstration. I had put it away in the refrigerator in a steel bowl filled with cold water. As I was getting ready to start, one of the assistants asked me whether she was to leave the squid in the refrigerator. “No,” I said. “Keep it outside.” When the moment came to show how to prep squid, I asked the assistant to bring me the bowl. I was surprised to see her leave the auditorium, but she returned quickly.

“It’s gone!” she cried.

“What’s gone?” I asked.

“The squid. I put it where you told me, and it’s gone, it’s not there anymore.”

“Where did you put it?”

“Where you told me, outside.”

“Where outside?”

“In the parking lot.”

It didn’t seem possible. “In the parking lot? Why the parking lot?”

“Well, Marcella, you said outside, and ‘outside’ means outside of the building, which is where the parking lot is.”

Victor and I hardly ever speak anything but Italian to each other. Somehow, one day, when we were discussing what I was going to teach the next day, I slipped into the language of the lesson, and I said at one point, “I am going to show them how to screw the shrimp.”

“Say that again,” Victor said.

I repeated the words.

“And you have been saying it all this time?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“And no one has ever made a comment?”

“No, why, what’s wrong with it?”

I never tried to use the word “skewer” again. I showed students how to make a brochette of shrimp.

The classes had begun to attract an ever more interesting group of students. A few were professionals, sometimes even too professional. Gael Greene arrived to take a pasta class equipped with a formidable array of knives. “You don’t need knives for pasta, Gael,” I said. “You need good hands and a rolling pin.” Men began to come to the classes. Jamie Niven, Ronald Lauder, Michael Thomas were among the ones I remember. Ronald was the most carefully dressed man I have ever had in class, or that I have ever known, perhaps. He was often going to or coming from a formal event, and then he would come in his dinner jacket. In one class, I had both James Beard and Joel Grey, colossal Jim and doll-like Joel, working side by side. Italian cooking was catching on with a rush, but the markets that were essential to it were missing still. Every time I started a lesson I would think, “If only I could have gone with the students to a real Italian market this morning, if only they could see what our vegetables are like, our fish, our tiny lambs; if only we had quality olive oil to cook with, and eggs with sunset-red yolks for our pasta.” The only way to do it would have been to take the class to Italy. And then, it seemed so obvious: Of course, I must take the class to Italy. I discussed it with Victor. He was always ready to consider any plan that would involve going to Italy. He said, “Yes, yes, yes! Go to Italy, go this summer, and see how it can be done.”

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