Simple Italian Cookery

Italian home cooking explained to Americans in 1912, every dish still carrying its own name: Brodo di Carne, Minestrone alla Milanese, Zuppa di Merluzzo.

Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each one links straight to the page it comes from.

  1. The sweet-sour sauce contains chocolate and capers. Agro Dolce Sauce mixes sugar, currants, a quarter-bar of grated chocolate, candied orange, lemon-peel, capers and vinegar — and pours over venison or veal. Read it in the book →
  2. The book measures in fingers. Chicken with Polenta calls for "a slice of ham fat four fingers wide and one finger long" — hands were the measuring cups of Italian kitchens. Read it in the book →
  3. Stracciatella means little rags. The Roman soup drizzles beaten egg, Parmesan and bread crumbs into boiling stock, stirring with a fork "to prevent the egg from setting" in one piece — the shreds are the dish. Read it in the book →
  4. Minestrone is translated as "Vegetable Chowder". In 1912 the word needed help: the book renders Minestrone alla Milanese in New England terms, chowder being the nearest American idea. Read it in the book →
  5. Golden Bread is engineering. Choose bread "elastic, but has no holes in it," cut it to size, scald it, then fry — precision instructions for what is, at heart, fried bread. Read it in the book →
  6. Bocconcini wraps meat, bread and ham together. Equal-sized pieces of meat, bread and ham — "little mouthfuls," browned crisp, served with lettuce salad. Read it in the book →
  7. Butter sauce is half-melted on purpose. Take the butter off the stove before it is all melted and keep stirring — the incomplete melt keeps the sauce thick and creamy instead of oily. Read it in the book →
  8. The wooden spoon is doctrine. Béchamel begins flour and butter "stirred with a wooden spoon until they have become a golden-brown color" — the roux, taught to Americans under its French name in an Italian cookbook. Read it in the book →
  9. Every dish carries its Italian passport. Beef Soup Stock (Brodo di Carne), Chicken Broth (Brodo di Capone), Codfish Soup (Zuppa di Merluzzo) — the double naming is the book's whole method: learn the dish, learn its name. Read it in the book →
  10. Chestnuts are roasted so they won't color. The Chestnut Fritters begin with twenty good chestnuts roasted "on a slow fire so that they won't color" — browning saved for the frying, not the roasting. Read it in the book →
Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Simple Italian Cookery (1912) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.