In an interview on The Top Cookery Books of All Time

Now on to Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which is hugely popular in the US. She was Italian, but married an American and learned to cook after moving to New York.

I like this book for exactly the opposite reasons that I like Elizabeth David. It’s not beautiful writing; I don’t read her for information; I don’t read her for a sense of place. I read Marcella Hazan purely for the way she writes her recipes. I think she’s a little humourless, and the tone is quite matriarchal. But there is no finer recipe writer. Her recipes are concise, they’re clear, they’re unfussy and she never leaves me in any doubt about what I’m supposed to be doing. I would have thought this is the perfect book for somebody who actually doesn’t know how to cook. She never patronises you, she never assumes you know anything much about practical cooking, and she guides you effortlessly through a recipe. And although there’s a strictness there that I bridle against, it’s an absolute gem of perfect recipe writing.

And is it authentic Italian, or an Americanised version?

I think it’s quite authentic. She has spent a lot of time in America, an awful lot. But I feel it’s authentic, and certainly I know Italians who give her the thumbs up and say it’s authentic.

So do you use it as model when you write your own recipes?

Well, actually no, because my recipes tend to be very chatty and informal, and my recipes, well, they are a bit vague sometimes, whereas Marcella’s are anything but.

In an interview on Wonderful Cookbooks

Tell me about the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. 

This is also Judith Jones. She has a sense of what a cookbook should be and I’ve really learnt from her. Again, Marcella Hazan takes you by the hand. For example, if you are going to make a risotto she tells you what rice to buy. Not just one, but several, two or three. She’ll tell you what kind of temperature you should cook at, how much liquid you need, all the possibilities. Which risotto is supposed to be wetter. A pea risotto, made in early spring, is in a particular style of Venice.

Soupy?

Yes. Soupy. People don’t always know that risotto can vary according to what the style is, etc. So, people always make it gummy but this is a soupy one. It is written so well, so beautifully, that you want to read the text and see how things arrive at being what they are. It is the best Italian cookbook I know of. I make a lot of things from it, including an osso bucco, the risottos, home-made pasta, ravioli. She leads you through the whole range.