Tools

The more I cook, the less equipment I want to be bothered with. The pleasure of collecting a variety of handsome cooking implements can be irresistible, and I confess I have resisted it less often than I should. But it easily becomes an end in itself, it is extravagant, it causes clutter, and it doesn’t have much to do with good cooking.

I cook best, I find, with a few well-made things whose properties have become so familiar that I use them as uncalculatingly as I do my hands.

I have nothing to add to the ample information already available from so many sources on the basic pots, knives, and other tools every cook needs. Special tools, such as pasta and ice cream machines, are discussed in the logical context of the recipes for which they are required. Here, I shall limit myself to listing a few implements useful to Italian cooks that might not be considered standard equipment in other kitchens.