If you’ve ever stood in your kitchen, whisking butter into a pot of tomatoes and onions to make "that" sauce, you know Marcella Hazan. You know her voice. It’s authoritative, a bit bossy, and completely obsessed with the purity of an ingredient.
But here’s the thing: those words weren't hers. Not exactly.
Marcella didn't write in English. She didn't even type. She sat with a yellow legal pad and a pen, pouring out her thoughts in Italian. The voice we all hear in our heads—the one that tells us why we’re peeling peppers wrong—is actually the voice of Victor Hazan. He was her husband, her translator, her editor, and honestly, the reason the English-speaking world even knows what real Italian food tastes like.
Victor Hazan died in late 2024 at the age of 96. His passing marks the end of a very specific, very elegant era of culinary history. Most people think of him as a sidekick. They’re wrong. Without Victor, Marcella might have remained a brilliant woman teaching biology in Italy, or at best, a local cooking instructor in a Queens apartment.
The Sephardic Kid from Cesena
Victor was born in 1928 in Cesena, Italy. His family was Sephardic Jewish, and his father was a furrier. It sounds like a quiet life, but the 1930s in Europe weren't quiet for Jewish families. His father saw the writing on the wall earlier than most. In 1939, they fled to New York.
Victor was eleven. He didn't speak a word of English.
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He didn't just learn the language; he mastered it. He went to Harvard (though he didn't finish), and he developed a prose style that was lean and sharp. But he was always pulled back to Italy. He went back in 1952, looking for something—roots, maybe, or just better food than what was in Forest Hills.
He found Marcella Polini.
She was a scientist with two doctorates. She also couldn't cook. Seriously. When they married in 1955 and moved back to New York, she had to teach herself to boil an egg. She used a copy of Il Talismano della Felicità and her own taste memories. Victor was the one who pushed her. He was the "food-obsessed" one who wanted the flavors of Romagna on a New York table.
Victor Hazan and the "Problem" of Italian Wine
While Marcella was becoming the "Godmother of Italian Cooking," Victor was carving out his own space. In 1982, he published Italian Wine.
At the time, the American view of Italian wine was pretty much limited to straw-covered bottles of cheap Chianti. Victor changed that. He didn't just list grapes; he wrote about the soul of the soil. He was known for being brutally honest. In a 2017 interview with the I'll Drink to That! podcast, he famously called certain modern winemaking practices "terrorist" acts against the terroir.
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He wasn't a fan of "add-on" culture. He hated when winemakers or chefs tried to mask the natural essence of an ingredient with vanity.
The Ghostwriter in Plain Sight
The collaboration between the two was intense. It wasn't just translation. It was a 60-year-long conversation.
- Marcella would write a recipe by hand in Italian.
- Victor would taste the dish, often critiquing it until it hit the "correct" profile.
- Victor would translate the soul of the recipe into English prose.
It’s rare to find a partnership so balanced. He was a Harvard-educated writer working for a woman who didn't care about "marketing." He helped her navigate the publishing world, including her famous falling out with the legendary editor Judith Jones.
In her final years, Marcella was working on a book about ingredients. After she died in 2013, Victor spent three years in their Longboat Key home finishing it. That book, Ingredienti, is the only one where his name finally appeared on the cover alongside hers.
Why He Still Matters Today
Honestly, we live in a world of "content." Everything is fast, everything is optimized. Victor Hazan represented the opposite. He represented the idea that words should be as carefully selected as a bunch of asparagus.
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He lived his final years in Florida, occasionally posting to Marcella’s Facebook page. His posts weren't "social media updates." They were elegies. He wrote about the grief of being "split in two" after sixty years of marriage. He wrote about the frustration of buying subpar produce at Whole Foods.
He was the last of the purists.
If you want to truly honor his legacy, don't just look up a recipe on a blog. Go find a used copy of his 1982 wine book. Read it not just for the wine tips, but for the rhythm of the sentences.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Cook:
- Stop over-complicating: Victor and Marcella believed that if you have a great ingredient, your job is to get out of its way.
- Find your "palate": Marcella cooked for Victor’s palate. Cooking for someone you love is the fastest way to get good at it.
- Read the introductions: Don't skip to the ingredients list. Victor’s writing in the headnotes of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking contains the actual "how-to" of life.
Victor Hazan wasn't just the man behind the woman. He was the architect of the way we think about the Italian table. Next time you open a bottle of Sangiovese, raise a glass to the kid from Cesena who never lost his taste for home.