Amarcord: Marcella Remembers: The Remarkable Life Story of the Woman Who Started Out Teachin... Book

Marcella Hazan's journey from Cesenatico on the Adriatic coast of Italy via Alexandria in Egypt to New York is fascinating to read about. Most surprising was her confession that when, newly married, she arrived in America, she "had never cooked anything, save for the mush I made for our pig during the war...." (p. 72) Her husband Victor "pulled out his old copy of Ada Boni," and as Hazan leafed through it, she was "awakened by sensations from another time and other places. I saw, I smelled, I tasted dishes that, until recently, had been commonplace in my life."
My taste memories were being released, and attached to them, mysteriously, was an intuitive understanding of how to produce those tastes. Cooking came to me as though it had been there all along, waiting to be expressed; it came as words come to a child when it is time for her to speak. (p. 73)
Cooking as speaking: it's a good metaphor to describe Hazan's particular talent as a cook, and also the effect of her cookbooks, which enable one to cook Italian food like a native speaker. (My favourite: Marcella Cucina.)

As other reviewers have noted, the early chapters of Amarcord: Marcella Remembers are the most interesting; in some of the later chapters, the sound of setting the record straight is clearly audible. But of course, that's part of what memoirs are about: this is how it was for me. I'm certainly on Hazan's side and was happy enough to read to the end.

The last chapter, about leaving Venice, saying goodbye to her hometown of Cesenatico, and returning to America to live in Florida (Florida?) is a bit sad--but Hazan went on to write one final cookbook, Marcella Says...: Italian Cooking Wisdom from the Legendary Teacher's Master Classes, with 120 of Her Irresistible New Recipes, which is partly about how to cook Italian food very far from home.

I think that anyone who has enjoyed cooking from Hazan's books will also enjoy reading this account of how they came into being and what became of their authors (let's not forget husband and translator Victor Hazan!) thereafter.