(lively music) - Italian cooking is very simple, but it's not easy.

(lively music) - Marcella Hazan was the person who helped you transmit love to somebody through the kitchen.

- Julia Child has called her, "My mentor in all things Italian."

- She is to Italian cooking what Muhammad Ali is to boxing, the champ.

- [Presenter] Marcella Hazan.

- Marcella Hazan.

- Marcella Hazan.

- Most people in America had never really experienced Italian food like people eat in Italy.

- When I grew up, we didn't have extra virgin olive oil, we didn't have arugula, we didn't have radicchio.

- We didn't even know what risotto was.

- She unlocked one of the greatest joys in the world, which are the culinary pleasures of Italy.

- It was a revelation.

(eager music) - The woman was an intelligent, trained scientist.

- I never cooked in my life until I married.

I never boil water if it was not in the beaker in the laboratory.

- Marcella realized that there had always been a cook inside her.

She decides to begin teaching Italian cooking to American women.

Marcella gets it all.

- We said, "Would you like to do a cookbook?

A cookbook?"

- I decided it was impossible because I don't write in English.

And Victor said, "Well, if you want, I will translate."

(eager music) - And in less than a year, we had produced the book.

A book that made history.

(eager music ending) (joyful music) - She was an absolute perfectionist.

There was only one way of doing things.

- She has no qualms about saying if you're doing something wrong.

- And if she didn't feel something was right, she voiced it.

- People in power, especially in the food world, find very threatening a woman who has the guts to stand up for herself.

(joyful music) - I'm in love with you, always have been.

- Thank you.

- To you, Marcella, and for all the good that you did to America's food.

Thank you.

(joyful music)