The exhibition explores the cookbook published by Pellegrino Artusi in 1891, entitled Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene).
More than a cookbook, this book was a political project – the contribution Artusi wanted to give his country, laboriously unified a few years earlier. Artusi’s work aimed to reflect the traditions of the whole country, not denying the extraordinary variety of local traditions, rather putting them into circulation, making them known and shared.
This project – also a linguistic one: telling the kitchen in a “national” language that everyone could understand – worked in a “inter-active”, almost a collective way, involving many readers that used to send Artusi suggestions, advice and new recipes. That’s why La scienza in cucina became a sort of collective work, adding more and more recipes over twenty years and fifteen editions, published until Artusi’s death (1911).