Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi, Murtha Baca, Luigi Ballerini

that while taste is doubtless one of the senses nature bestows upon all her children, a taste for food is a “knowledge” one develops through a strategy of instinctual perceptions. It is safe to assume that, in Artusi’s title,
science
and
art
are to be entered as chiastic members of same basic linguistic register. In our times,
Art in the Kitchen and the Science of Eating Well
would be equally satisfactory; in nineteenth-century rhetoric, this would not have been the case.
    Beyond these semasiological explorations, two major achievements have remained unchallenged from Artusi’s times to our own: the reaffirmation of a direct link between health and a sensible diet 124 and the definitive defeat of those “medically proven theories” that assigned different digestive and assimilative powers to stomachs belonging to people of different social origin. Clearly these theories did not hold taste to be a matter of culture, and anchored metabolism to a set on non-physiological observations. While gentlemen and ladies 125 would be harmed by the ingestion of popular and rustic food, feeding “delicate food” to bean-eating peasants would result in sickness and death. 126 Variously manipulated, this rather convenient assumption became a powerful political tool in the hands of the privileged classes and an occasion for self-defeating vainglorious declarations on the part of their subjects. 127
    Now that gastronomic democracy seems to be solidly entrenched in certain regions of the West (not necessarily those that glitter most: just look at the millions of Americans who poison themselves daily with fast-food products and turn their bodies into walking garbage bins), poor parents may renounce their cruel tease of promising to reward the good behavior of their ice cream-craving children by showing them other more fortunate children
actually
eating ice cream in the main piazza of an Italian or French city. The repercussions ofthis type of “grey” humor may still be traced in the darker psychic recesses and ostensible lifestyle of many a Rolex-flaunting adult.
    A caveat to conclude: The Artusian predilection for excessive quantities of butter and lard is a myth. As is the idea that the recipes liberally deploy spices: neither Tuscan nor Romagnan cuisine is particularly spicy; and Artusi recommends using modest amounts of salt and pepper. Exaggeration, even if judged by our standards, is not really Artusi’s game. Indeed, a revealing
excusatio
concludes the brief preface to the book: “I should not like my interest in gastronomy to give me the reputation of a gourmand or glutton. I object to any such dishonorable imputation, for I am neither. I love the good and the beautiful wherever I find them, and hate to see anyone squander, as they say, God’s bounty. Amen.” 128
    In their
Artusi 2000
, 129 Giuseppe Sangiorgi and Annamaria Tosi have rearranged 775 Artusian recipes in order to construct a rational model of food consumption, on a day-to-day basis. They show beyond any doubt that consulting
Scienza in cucina
does not automatically mean preparing for a royal banquet. On the other hand, Claudio Moras, president of the Associazione Cuochi Romagnoli (the Romagna Chefs’ Association) and editor of
L’Artusi cent’anni dopo, 1891 — 1991
130 argues, with good reason, that the classification of
pagnottelle ripiene
(stuffed rolls; recipe 239) under the heading “entremets” – that is, minor dishes to be served between main courses – may contradict eating habits on any rung of the social ladder. The caloric content of the stuffing itself, which consists in Artusi’s words, “of chickpea-size chunks … [of] chicken livers, white chicken meat, sweetbreads and the like … cooked in brown stock and bound with a pinch of flour … [and], to make the mixture tastier, … truffles,” 131 is enough to discourage the modern chef from treating
pagnottelle
as a dependent clause in an already rich edible sentence. But, if that is