The book, "Home Life in Italy Letters from the Apennines" by Lina Duff Gordon (London: Methuen, 1908) includes a number of recipes and a personal description of an Italian kitchen at the turn of the last century. The book is available for free at www.archive.org.

In the book "Home Life in Italy Letters from the Apennines" by Lina Duff Gordon (London: Methuen, 1908) the author takes a personal look at the lifestyle of Italians at the turn of the last century. In Chapter 6 she describes the kitchen of a middle-class Tuscan family; she also includes some recipes. The book is available at www.archive.org for free. Here is a short excerpt from Chapter 6: "In every Italian is a born cook, so that, if the chef decamps in a rage, the Italian mistress need not necessarily wring her hands. Is not Pasquale, her major-domo, famous for his omelettes and stuffed pigeons, and Ettore, the gardener, known in all the country-side for his risotto al sugo, whenever, poor fellow, he has the pence to spend on such a dish ; and then there is the wife of Angelo, the night-guard ? well, she could as easily cook a dinner fit for the king as say her prayers to the Madonna, If the mistress deserted by her cook be of the bourgeoisie she will not even trouble to sigh at her loss, for since childhood she has learnt the great art, and is even independent of a cookery book ; the daintiest dishes at every gala feast which she and her husband have given will always have been of her own making, and every detail of the marketing is in her capable hands. But if in Italy it be easy to find a woman cook above the average for some sixteen pounds a year, and a really good man cook for about two pounds a month, while in England you cannot get the same class of servant at double the price, I must in fairness say that the Italian has in many ways an easier task. The Italian kitchen has two chief characteristics : an open wood fire-place with a big hooded chimney- piece and a charcoal range. Besides these you may sometimes see a large wooden cage in which the Christmas capon is fattening or a cock is waiting its turn to be made into soup, and in the meanwhile wakes up the family at an early hour with shrill notes. The charcoal range may be described as a long and solid dresser built of bricks against the wall, on the top of which are several grates of about ten inches square, into which a handful of charcoal is dropped and lighted from underneath, where there is a small space for the draught and ashes. Between these grates, or fornelli, are brightly coloured glazed tiles, which are easily kept clean by a damp cloth. One disadvantage of the charcoal range is the dust, but I do not know that it is any worse than an English range ; of course it does not give the wonderful supply of hot water as in England, but, then, Italians have not our passion for incessant baths, and their first care is economy. Although we are by way of being extravagant in the matter of kitchen fires, my Italian range costs eight shillings a month as against nearly a ton of coal in England. In an ordinary household a cauldron of water is boiled up whenever it may be wanted, and after the mid-day meal, which is generally the principal one, all the fires are let out, and for the evening only perhaps one fortiello will be lighted. It is quite amusing to watch the cook upon her culinary preparations, setting all her little fornelli alight. And, indeed, it requires quickness and intelligence to order her fires aright : on one the kid soup begins to boil madly and has to be skimmed ; next to it the meat for the risotto has to be turned in its butter and onion sauce ; then the charcoal sinks and the big marmite with the vegetables half tumbles over ; with a " O Gesu, Maria " it is set up on its base again. Not one dull moment has the cook, or the onlooker for the matter of that ; if her dishes give her a moment's repose, there is the fire to renew, and its flame must be quickened with the little straw fan ; or sometimes the meat cooks too quickly and the fire must be covered over with a thin layer of ashes. I believe you are saying that you prefer the dull, scorching and rapacious English range, but that is only because you have not the Italian's love for taking plenty of time over a task and cooking things slowly. An ordinary oven with a door, only heated above by charcoal, is often used ; but more general is the " country oven," or forno di campagna, which is a circular tin stand with a cover, looking like a Chinese hat ; and, set above one of fornelli, it gets as hot as one wants for a small roast, a souffle, pastry patties or rolls. Neither of these ovens do for the baking of the immense quantity of home-made bread made in many well-to-do, and in all artisan families. For this most important item a brick oven is used, as in an old-fashioned English house ; the bread is put in directly the ashes of the brushwood have been swept out. We are not possessed of this luxury and are obliged to send our bread to the town baker. Mariannina, who is very proud of her skill, and has good cause to be, soon appropriated my best plaid shawl for its early journey. I often watch her from the window striding quickly down the hill, an immense wooden tray on her head and the precious loaves snugly reposing beneath a Gordon tartan. I say with pride that I can fling open the kitchen door at any moment of the day and it is always neat and clean. Indeed, I have in this very perfection found a disadvantage, for once, while trying to concoct a new dish before passing on my hard- earned knowledge to Mariannina, she whisked the flour bin, the salt, the wooden spoons, and every other utensil off the table directly I had turned my back, and long before I had ended my toils. But were it not for this cleanliness, it would not be possible to keep chickens in the kitchen. Although every kitchen is amply furnished with copper pots and pans, earthenware casseroles or marmites are enormously used, and, of course, are much easier to keep clean than our English iron pots, which Mariannina always declares, with much disdain, look like the utensils of the devil's wife. I have always found that soup or a stew cooked in a casserole is better flavoured. Added to this every Italian household, even of the artisan and the peasant, will have a good provision oi fungJii, which they have dried themselves and keep in a big bag near the fire-place ; there will also be good tomato sauce bottled in the house, and a tomato preserve much stronger in flavour, which has been dried in the sun and becomes like a cake, and jars of small onions and peppers preserved in vinegar, and perhaps even earthenware jars as big as those of the forty thieves, full of whole tomatoes preserved in salt. The absence of these things in England, and the very stale and nasty Parmesan cheese, which one gets even from the best Italian warehouse in London, always depresses Mariannina. She gazes with a tragic air at the tomatoes provided for her sauces, and her eyes open wide at the thought of paying fourpence or sixpence a pound instead of a half- penny.....

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