Marcella Hazan did for Italian cooking what Julia Child did for French. Her book, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, was the cookbook for Italian foods of her generation. Hazan, born in 1924, was a lover of good food and received many prestigious awards, such as the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In the New York Times article Marcella Hazan and Her Namesake Bean, her husband Victor Hazan the wine writer says, “To Marcella, one of the ultimate pleasures in life was warm beans with good olive oil.” So naturally she found her way to Steve Sando‘s Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food. They became online pen pals, and it wasn’t long before he asked her what bean she most missed from Italy. She told him it was the Sorana, a tiny creamy cannellini bean with the thinnest skin. The Rancho Gordo staff  went hunting for the seed and through some sleuthing and luck, they found it. Marcella passed away as the first batch of beans were harvested, and owner Steve Sando named these beans Marcella to honor her memory.

 

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