Amarcord CD [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Marcella Hazan (Author), Concetta Tomei (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2008

Marcella Hazan is known as America's godmother of Italian cooking. The owner of her own cooking schools, and author of bestselling and award-winning cookbooks, she has collected invitations to cook at top restaurants around the world.

Her story begins in Alexandria, Egypt, where an early childhood accident would alter the course of her life and bring her family back to her father's native Italy for medical treatment. In Italy, Marcella was fulfilling her ambition to become a doctor when she met Victor, the love of her life. After their marriage, they moved to America, where Marcella knew not a word of English or a single recipe. She began to recall and attempt to re-create the flavors of her homeland, giving cooking lessons in her tiny New York kitchen. Soon after, Craig Claiborne invited himself to lunch, and the rest is history.

Amarcord means "I remember" in Marcella's native Romagnolo dialect. Marcella, now eighty-four, looks back on the adventures of a life lived for pleasure and a love of teaching, and the twists and turns that brought her love, fame, and a chance to forever change the way we eat.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In 1969 Hazan gave the private cooking class that launched her career as the Italian Julia Child. In an evocative memoir, she recounts her life from childhood to Florida Gulf Coast retirement. Hazan spent her earliest years on another coast, in Cesenatico, a village on the Adriatic; during WWII the family moved to a lake in the mountains between Venice and Milan. Fresh out of the university, she taught college math and science and met a young man who had returned to his Italian homeland after more than a decade in America. He loved food, and his worldliness and sophistication made a good match for the comparatively earthbound author. After they married, the couple moved several times between various places in Italy and America. During a long stay in New York, Hazan began to offer the Italian cooking lessons that later caught the attention of such chefs as New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne. This led to the writing and publication in 1973 of The Classic Italian Cookbook. Hazan's memoir is a terrific history of the expansive, postwar period when Americans were still learning the difference between linguine and Lambrusco, and an engaging chronicle of professional perseverance, chance and culinary destiny. Photos. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

Born in Cesenatico, a fishing village near Rimini, in 1931, Hazan married the son of a New York furrier and began cooking for him. Soon, she was giving classes in her Manhattan kitchen, and when Craig Claiborne came to lunch and wrote her up in the Times Hazan was on the map. The city of Bologna built her a kitchen, and she led celebrated cooking classes in Venice. With her husband as translator, Hazan wrote �The Classic Italian Cookbook� (among others), though her publishing adventures were fraught. In this memoir, she does not have the advantage that Julia Child did, of having a voice so familiar that we hear every sentence in her inimitable delivery, but she comes through now and then: �I soon discovered a natural inclination for frying.�
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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: HarperAudio; Unabridged edition (September 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061720739
• ISBN-13: 978-0061720734
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,092,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #50 in Books > Books on CD > Cooking, Food & Wine

More About the Author

Marcella Hazan, the acknowledged godmother of Italian cooking in America, is the author of The Classic Italian Cookbook, More Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella's Italian kitchen, and Essentials of Italian Cooking .She lives in Venice, Italy, and Longboat Key, Florida.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fond Memoir of a Charmed (and Tasty) Life, January 28, 2009

By 

Joseph S. Allegretti "Joe Allegretti" (Santa Barbara, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Amarcord: Marcella Remembers (Hardcover)

I found Hazan's book to be one of the most entertaining "foodie" memoirs that I've read. It was a page turner that kept me interested throughout: from her fond descriptions of childhood in Italy through to the end of her teaching career in the magical city of Venice and sweet retirement on the beach in Florida.

Even though I've been a great aficionado of cooking and was aware of several media and publishing personalities, I had somehow not heard of Hazan until recent years. Thus, this memoir was perfect as an in depth introduction to this admirable woman for me. I found the tone completely sincere, frank, and heartfelt. It also made me laugh many times.

I can understand a bit of the previous reviewer's gripe, but I personally didn't find Hazan overly bitter, unhappy, or full of complaint. As I said, she's frank and forthright and speaks her mind even when it seems to verge on being indiscreet (as anyone who has met certain Italian women can attest they do very well!). Mistakes: she's made a few. Regrets: she has a few. Slights: she's felt the sting of a few. However, for me Hazan's love of life, of the many paths on which it has taken her, and above all of GOOD FOOD really shines through. I'm eager to seek out some of her cookbooks.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars who are fans of Hazan's cookbooks, and who like autobiographies, will relish this story, December 14, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Amarcord: Marcella Remembers (Hardcover)

Marcella Hazan has been credited with introducing Italian food to the English-speaking world, but until now she's received relatively little attention for her personal life. Her memoir begins in Egypt, where she spent her early childhood, follows her unexpected journey back to family roots in Italy at a young age, and follows her initial ambition to become doctor and professor of science before she marries, moves to America, and began taking cooking lessons to re-create the taste of her homeland. Any who are fans of Hazan's cookbooks, and who like autobiographies, will relish this story of how she evolved to become a world-class cook and teacher.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bravo Marcella, January 29, 2009

By 

Liz (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Amarcord: Marcella Remembers (Hardcover)

I've been a fan of Marcella's cookbooks (her Roast Chickens with Lemons is one of the best and easiest recipes I have ever cooked) and I enjoyed her autobiography. It was interesting to learn how she happened upon her illustrious cooking career. I enjoyed her funny anecdotes, especially the one about the call from her son's school in which she was told that they hoped she was making progress in learning how to cook. I found it refreshing that she also shared some of her failures and regrets. As a cook who will never have the tremendous success of writing a best-selling cookbook, it was nice to know that even best-selling cookbook authors can have failures too. I appreciated her candor about some of her professional relationships that did not work out. I did not find it to be "sour grapes." Relationships do not always work out. That's life, and apparently it happens to successful cooks and authors too.