Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi, Murtha Baca, Luigi Ballerini Read Free Book Online Page A
Tags: CKB041000
proved to be costly both in term of human lives and international prestige. Not only did efforts to conquer Ethiopia,for instance, bring nothing but pain to thousands of people in both nations, but the crushing defeat inflicted by the troops of Emperor Menelik upon the army of General Barattieri at the battle of Adwa (1896) caused the downfall of the Italian government and increasing political confusion while creating new economic difficulties for many Italian families. The only good to come of it was the myth it dispelled, that Africa was there for the taking by European powers. More important, it marked the entry of Ethiopia into the modern community of sovereign and independent nations.
A deplorable state of domestic affairs, no doubt. Yet we would have to look very hard to find any trace of it in Pellegrino Artusi’s book, which was first printed during a year that saw the official birth of the Italian Socialist Party and the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical
Rerum novarum
, a document of rare significance, focusing on the relation between capital and labor. While condemning socialism as a measure falling short of the mark and depriving humanity of some “indisputable” rights (such as a right to retain private property, no matter how achieved),
Rerum novarum
calls attention to the “spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, [and which] should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics.” It is quite explicit, about the “changed relations between masters and workmen” as well as “the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses.” Its concluding words encourage the creation of representative bodies to mediate between the employers and the employed. When “either a master or a workman believes himself injured, nothing would be more desirable than that a committee should be appointed, composed of reliable and capable members of the association, whose duty would be, conformably with the rules of the association, to settle the dispute. Among the several purposes of a society, one should be to try to arrange for a continuous supply of work at all times and seasons; as well as to create a fund out of which the members may be effectually helped in their needs, not only in the cases of accident, but also in sickness, old age,and distress.” 71 The document is a major step forward, if not in the history of social doctrines, then certainly in that of the Catholic Church, which for centuries had sided almost exclusively with the masters.
Rich as it is in historical and scientific information,
Scienza in cucina
scrupulously avoids any mention of strife and unrest. One could point to temporal and spatial circumstances to justify this avoidance. First, by the year 1897, when the book was undergoing revisions and enlargements, and its dissemination was getting under way, the increase in prices that would drive Milanese workers to despair as well as an increase in real estate values had begun to act as economic boosters as well. The following decade and a half turned out to be (surprisingly enough) a period of relative prosperity, which came to a halt with the unfortunate decision to enter the First World War. Second, Artusi conceived and wrote his book in Florence, a well-governed and fairly peaceful town, especially when compared to Forlimpopoli and the continuous troubles caused there and throughout Emilia-Romagna by the combined presence of a reactionary Vatican administration and Austrian troops charged with the task of making sure that the equilibrium between church privileges and popular ignorance would not be disturbed.
Artusi’s descriptions of Florence are not incongruous with those typically found in the literature of the Grand Tour; nor is his criticism much different from the words of annoyance we occasionally find in E.M. Forster’s
A Room with a
A deplorable state of domestic affairs, no doubt. Yet we would have to look very hard to find any trace of it in Pellegrino Artusi’s book, which was first printed during a year that saw the official birth of the Italian Socialist Party and the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical
Rerum novarum
, a document of rare significance, focusing on the relation between capital and labor. While condemning socialism as a measure falling short of the mark and depriving humanity of some “indisputable” rights (such as a right to retain private property, no matter how achieved),
Rerum novarum
calls attention to the “spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, [and which] should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics.” It is quite explicit, about the “changed relations between masters and workmen” as well as “the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses.” Its concluding words encourage the creation of representative bodies to mediate between the employers and the employed. When “either a master or a workman believes himself injured, nothing would be more desirable than that a committee should be appointed, composed of reliable and capable members of the association, whose duty would be, conformably with the rules of the association, to settle the dispute. Among the several purposes of a society, one should be to try to arrange for a continuous supply of work at all times and seasons; as well as to create a fund out of which the members may be effectually helped in their needs, not only in the cases of accident, but also in sickness, old age,and distress.” 71 The document is a major step forward, if not in the history of social doctrines, then certainly in that of the Catholic Church, which for centuries had sided almost exclusively with the masters.
Rich as it is in historical and scientific information,
Scienza in cucina
scrupulously avoids any mention of strife and unrest. One could point to temporal and spatial circumstances to justify this avoidance. First, by the year 1897, when the book was undergoing revisions and enlargements, and its dissemination was getting under way, the increase in prices that would drive Milanese workers to despair as well as an increase in real estate values had begun to act as economic boosters as well. The following decade and a half turned out to be (surprisingly enough) a period of relative prosperity, which came to a halt with the unfortunate decision to enter the First World War. Second, Artusi conceived and wrote his book in Florence, a well-governed and fairly peaceful town, especially when compared to Forlimpopoli and the continuous troubles caused there and throughout Emilia-Romagna by the combined presence of a reactionary Vatican administration and Austrian troops charged with the task of making sure that the equilibrium between church privileges and popular ignorance would not be disturbed.
Artusi’s descriptions of Florence are not incongruous with those typically found in the literature of the Grand Tour; nor is his criticism much different from the words of annoyance we occasionally find in E.M. Forster’s
A Room with a
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