5th World Week for Italian Cuisine: Introduction of Pellegrino Artusi

Pellegrino Artusi was born in 1820 in Forlimpopoli, Emilia Romagna into a well-to-do family. His father was a tradesman who owned a drugstore. After their house was raided by the notorious bandit nicknamed “il Passatore”, the family left Forlimpopoli for good and moved to Florence. Here Pellegrino Artusi passed the rest of his days until his death in 1911, living a life of leisure that allowed him to devote himself completely to his passion for cooking. Artusi is buried in the Porte Sante cemetery located next to the San Miniato al Monte church in Florence. Having no descendants, he left one part of his estate to his two trusted servants and the other to the city of his birth, Forlimpopoli.

Artusi occupies a very important place in the history of modern Italian cuisine. His passion for cooking led him to compiled a collection of 790 home-style recipes which he published at his own expense in 1891 as a manual called “Science in Cooking and the Art of Eating Well”. This became the first compendium of Italian home cooking during what was a historically important time for Italy, a country that had been unified a few decades ago but had yet to find a sense of cultural unity. Thanks to the resounding success of its various editions, the book was instrumental in giving a sense of culinary unity to the country.

The book was also important from a linguistic point of view because it helped popularize phrases from the Tuscan dialect in culinary language at a time when Italy had yet to find a common national language. Many of these phrases permanently became part of Italian culinary terminology, whereas others remained confined to the Tuscan dialect. 

This year marks Artist’s 200th birth anniversary. As part of the ongoing World Week of Italian Cuisine and in collaboration with the Casa Artusi Foudation, the Italian Cultural Centre would like to celebrate this occasion by bringing you videos of some of Pellegrino Artusi’s recipes, recorded for us by Casa Artusi.