Writing what? Cookbook or memoir?
When I think about putting my past years together into a cookbook, I think about what goes around the recipes. What is particular about my experience in my Italian kitchen that makes it any different to any other expatriate from any country at all who came here and cooked?
I can’t know the answer to that until I have talked to every expatriate cook, but I can figure out what’s been driving me.
First of all, I discovered that what I thought I knew about Italian cooking was mostly wrong. Even when I got halfway to right, it was still wrong. Most of the Italian meals I made for friends in the United States were comparatively complicated, heavy and depended too much on pasta. I thought finding prosciutto meant my job was done. I thought using blocks of Parmigiano Reggiano was the necessary step forward. I thought Pecorino was Pecorino. If I found and bought all the vegetables and creams and oils in the recipes, I felt like a winner.
Second, I thought making it right was difficult and that making it mine was essential.
Third, I thought fresh pasta, homemade or purchased was always superior to dried pasta.
What has happened to me is that step by step I walked into kitchens, asked questions and listened hard. That was essential for sure when I didn’t speak the language all that well. My neighbors got used to my dropping by at 12:30 and asked “What are you cooking today?” I was always invited to eat, and I always said no. I didn’t want them to quail the next time I knocked on the door. I just wanted to know what ordinary Italians really ate for their main meal of the day. I made a friend of the woman who is the best cook in the region and talked about food with her nearly all the time we spent together.
I went to culinary school to find out what was in the repertoire of kitchens that weren’t making dinner for ordinary Italians, and what techniques were used to make expensive foods practical.
I traveled to some other regions to taste their foods the way they make them on the spot.
I read histories of everyday life and what people eat, where and why. I learned to understand why a dish was considered strictly local, what made it perennial and why it got its name.
I then went into my own kitchen and with ingredients I bought from people who grew them, as much as possible, I cooked. I used, abused and experimented with one ingredient after another to see where I could take it without leaving Italy in the mind. And then I thought I was ready.
Other cooks still said, “I can’t do that!” or “My family would want cheese on that.” I pleaded that they would try the recipe as written once before throwing cheese at it. I deconstructed the recipes and divided the chores involved into the simple steps that comprise cooking. If a dish takes four hours to cook, I tried to point out ways that three and a half of those hours could be spent ignoring, or almost ignoring the cooking. After all, your oven won’t complain at being left alone, but your child, your work or the pool man might.
I’ve ended up with over one hundred recipes that make pure, clean and unfussy foods that are delicious. So am I done? Am I ready to index this thing and get it published. It seems not.
Read this and weep for me. The upshot seems to be that if you aren’t already in the public eye, there’s no market for your cookbook. Frankly, it sounds like even if you are, there may be no market. And if you have the right book, the public wants top quality pictures, but won’t pay the price for them. Maybe magazines are doing too good a job at providing wonderful pictures for a few bucks a month? (I find, however, a lot of magazine recipes are too complicated and have so many ingredients that the tastes are muddled.)
I admit to being a little discouraged, but then I read this and got a good laugh. A good laugh is sometimes all you need when life feels tough to take.
So off to Florence and back soon. Think on it.
8 comments September 22nd, 2007
