The article Food, Recipes, Cookbooks, and Italian-American Life explores the notion that “Among Italian Americans, food and cooking are powerful expressions of our ties to the past and to our current identities.” To better understand this idea, the authors, Donna R. Gabaccia and Carol Helstrosky, delve into Italian American cookbooks. Helstrosky first analyzes La cucina casareccia napoletana whilst Gabaccia provides a broader look into cookbooks that have become concentrated on immigrant kitchens. The authors’ narrative also provides insight on Italian culture and its juxtaposition to American culture.

           In the introduction, the authors discuss the fact that the American multitude has responded positively to Italian gastronomy. They mention “African- Americans to ‘WASPS’ now cook and eat spaghetti…” so as to note that two socially polar-opposite subcultures who differ in so many ways can find a commonality in spaghetti. However, although most of the responses are positive, some of the mainstream and popular culture depictions can be quite insulting to Italian Americans as they are often portrayed as “overweight ‘Mamas’ tied to their sauce pans” which can imply that they are obsessed with eating. In reference to the exploration of Italian cookbooks Helstrosky expresses that they  “are complex sources, inherently difficult to interpret” and as a result should not be the only resource to consider when conducting an analysis on food, culture and society.

           In an attempt to decipher La cucina casareccia, Helstrosky discovers that the book “reveals precisely the kinds of problems attendant upon translating culinary traditions across economic and political boundaries, or, more to the point, the difficulty of defining what constitutes ‘tradition’ when it comes to preparing and consuming food.” This allows us to discern the subjectivity, complexity, and uniqueness that can be found in cookbooks. Helstrosky also mentions that the book does not list exact measurements nor precise ingredients, but instead descriptive paragraphs that allows for literary translation; which can also be a precursor to more subjectivity. Further, the simplicity of the vast majority of the recipes speaks the economy of Italy at the time of creation of the book.

           Moreover, Gabaccia delves into general Italian American cookbooks that focus on the nexus between the cultures. Gabaccia begins the section by questioning what makes a cookbook Italian American? She validates the question by proposing follow-up questions regarding the language of the book, the origin country of print, and the ethnicity of the creator. To better understand and answer these questions, Gabaccia “focus[es] on the history of cookbooks written by, or for, immigrant cooks and their descendants, attending particularly to those cookbooks that offer information about the kitchens and cooking of Italian-origin foods in the kitchens of Italian immigrants and their descendants.” She then compares them to American cookbooks that have Italian recipes, which were created by non-immigrant cooks.  

           One of the notable differences come from pre and post World War I. “Americans' motives for exploring Italian food changed over time. Bohemians and intellectuals learned to love Italian food and ‘dago red’ (wine) in the years before World War I because they associated it with hedonism, pleasure, and their own revolt against the straight-jacket of Victorian culture. Then, from World War I to World War II, women's magazines and home economists urged economizing housewives to view Italian recipes as important resources in times of depression and war.”  From this passage, we can understand that like La cucina casareccia, Italian American cookbooks that we created by non-immigrants are also affected by political climates and socio-economic status.

           Although the article as a whole makes reference to the idea that cookbooks can be difficult to interpret because of the lack of context, one can gather much information based on the type of ingredients that were chosen and the style of cooking that was portrayed. The subjectivity and complexity in the different styles of cookbooks speak to the uniqueness of each and every one of them furthering the argument that older cookbooks should be considered historic artifacts.


-Mariana Barrios