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Massimo Montanari - Let the Meatballs Rest: And Other Stories About Food and Culture

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Book:
Let the Meatballs Rest: And Other Stories About Food and Culture
Author:
Massimo Montanari / Beth Archer Brombert
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
Genre:
Books / Romance novel
Year:
2012
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Known for his entertaining investigations into culinary practice, Massimo Montanari turns his hungry eye to the phenomenon of food culture, food lore, cooking methods, and eating habits throughout history. An irresistible buffet of one hundred concise and engaging essays, this collection provides stimulating food for thought for those curious about one of lifes most fundamental pleasures.

Focusing on the selection, preparation, and mythology of food, Montanari traverses such subjects as the status of the pantry over the centuries, the various strategies of cooking over time, the gastronomy of famine, the science of flavors, the changing characteristics of convivial rituals, the customs of the table, and the ever-evolving identity of food. He shows that cooking not only is a decisive part of our cultural heritage but also communicates essential information about our material and intellectual well-being.

From the invention of basic bread making to chocolates reputation for decadence, Montanari positions food culture as a lens through which we can plot changes in historical values and social and economic trends. Even the biblical tale of Jacob buying Esaus birthright for a bowl of lentils is a text full of essential meaning, representing civilizations important shift from a hunting to an agrarian society. Readers of all backgrounds will enjoy these delectable insights and their easy consumption in one companionable volume.

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LET the MEATBALLS REST

and

Other Stories About Food and Culture

Arts and Traditions of the Table

ARTS AND TRADITIONS OF THE TABLE

PERSPECTIVES ON CULINARY HISTORY

ALBERT SONNENFELD, SERIES EDITOR

Salt: Grain of Life, Pierre Laszlo, translated by Mary Beth Mader

Culture of the Fork, Giovanni Rebora, translated by Albert Sonnenfeld

French Gastronomy: The History and Geography of a Passion,

Jean-Robert Pitte, translated by Jody Gladding

Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food,

Silvano Serventi and Franoise Sabban, translated by Antony Shugar

Slow Food: The Case for Taste, Carlo Petrini, translated by William McCuaig

Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History,

Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari, translated by ine OHealy

British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History, Colin Spencer

A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America,

James E. McWilliams

Sacred Cow, Mad Cow: A History of Food Fears, Madeleine Ferrires, translated by Jody Gladding

Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor,

Herv This, translated by M. B. DeBevoise

Food Is Culture, Massimo Montanari, translated by Albert Sonnenfeld

Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking,

Herv This, translated by Jody Gladding

Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America, Frederick Douglass Opie

Gastropolis: Food and New York City,

edited by Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deutsch

Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism, Herv This, translated by M. B. DeBevoise

Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, Andrew F. Smith

The Science of the Oven, Herv This, translated by Jody Gladding

Pomodoro! A History of the Tomato in Italy, David Gentilcore

Cheese, Pears, and History in a Proverb, Massimo Montanari, translated by Beth Archer Brombert

Food and Faith in Christian Culture, edited by Ken Albals and Trudy Eden

The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflections on the Science of Food and Cooking, edited by Csar Vega, Job Ubbink, and Erik van der Linden

TRANSLATED BY BETH ARCHER BROMBERT

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Published by agreement with Marco Vigevani Agenzia Letteraria.

E-ISBN 978-0-231-52788-0

The translation of the work has been funded by SEPS

Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche

Via Val d'Aposa 7

40123 Bologna, Italy

seps@seps.itwww.seps.it

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Montanari, Massimo, 1949

[Riposo della polpetta e altre storie intorno al cibo. English]

Let the meatballs rest, and other stories about food and culture /

Massimo Montanari; translated by Beth Archer Brombert

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-231-15732-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-231-52788-0 (ebook)

1. CookingHistory. 2. CookingPhilosophy. 3. Food habitsHistory.

4. Food habitsPhilosophy. I. Title.

TX645.M6613 2012

641.5dc23 2012021330

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at .

References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

CONTENTS

We were making meatballs in the kitchen one evening: boiled beef, cooked cardoons, parmesan, bread crumbs, two eggs, salt, pepper. Once the mixture was done, we shaped the meatballs and arranged them neatly on a plate. At that point, Marina advised: Now, before cooking them, let us leave them to rest for a few hours. That way they firm up and get thoroughly blended.

It occurred to me that letting meatballs rest is much like what happens in our minds when we work out an idea. Ideas are the result of experiences, encounters, reflections, suggestions: many ingredients that come together and then turn into a new thought. Before that can happen, it is useful to let those ingredients rest, to give them time to settle, to become blended, to firm up. The resting of meatballs is like the resting of thoughts: After a while, they turn out better.

The kitchen is not just the place where survival and pleasure are planned. It is also an ideal place for training the mind. To observe the processes of cooking, the transformation of raw materials subjected to the heat of the stove, the incontrovertible rules of suitability (some things go well together, others do not), the order and sequence of actions (done in a particular order and a particular rhythm can produce excellent results, done differently can cause disasters, as when a mayonnaise curdles), can allow us to contemplate the rules that govern daily life, the things that happen around us each day, our relationship with the world, with others, with ourselves.

Cooking is not an inferior activity; it stimulates the intelligence. This view is also held by a famous lady of the seventeenth century, Sister Juana Ins de la Cruz, the major poet of the Mexican Baroque. In her proud affirmation of the role of women (which caused her no small amount of derision in the macho society of the time), she defended the intellectual dimension of preparing food, comparing it to philosophical reflection and even declaring its superiority. What can I tell you, wrote Sister Juana, about the secrets of nature that I discovered while I was cooking? I see an egg that solidifies as it fries in butter or oil, and on the contrary separates in syrup; I see that for sugar to remain free-flowing it is enough to add a tiny amount of water in which a quince or some other acidy fruit has been placed; I see that the yolk and the white of the same egg are such contrary entities that with sugar they can be whipped but never together. These observations are far more profound than they would seem at first glance, so that, Sister Juana concludes provocatively, One can easily philosophize while preparing dinner. I maintain that Aristotle would have written much more had he cooked.

In the following pages I have collected a hundred short pieces that appeared during the past few years in Consumatori, the monthly magazine of the Coop Adriatica, and in the Sunday pages of the newspaper La Repubblica. I thank the directors of both publications for allowing me to reprint these articles, to which I have added a few small pieces that were published elsewhere. Small, but I hope not without interest, because I have always held the conviction that important topics can also be treated lightly, starting from simple reflections on facts, things, words, that cross our path and that, despite their seeming banality, contain meaningful fragments about our history and express important aspects of our culture.

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