author
Maria Gentile
A little-known early cookbook writer, she helped bring Italian home cooking to English-speaking readers in the years just after World War I. Her recipes are practical, economical, and full of the everyday spirit that made Italian food beloved far beyond Italy.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Very little biographical information about Maria Gentile appears to be firmly documented in the sources available online. She is best known as the compiler of The Italian Cook Book: The Art of Eating Well, published in New York by Italian Book Co. in 1919.
The book presents Italian cuisine as flavorful, nourishing, and affordable, with recipes for everyday dishes as well as pastries, sweets, frozen desserts, and syrups. Its preface places it in the post-World War I moment, when thrift and careful household cooking were especially valued, which gives her work a clear historical place in the story of Italian food writing in America.
Because so little else could be confirmed, it is safest to remember her through the book itself: an early English-language guide that helped introduce readers to practical Italian cooking and preserve a snapshot of culinary life from the early twentieth century.