La 'Cucina casereccia': un’appendice dialettale alla 'Cucina teorico-pratica' (1ª ed. 1837-7ª ed. 1852) di Ippolito Cavalcanti

Abstract

The contribution focuses on the editorial fortune and evolution of Cucina casereccia, the appendix in Neapolitan dialect found at the end of each of the seven editions (1837-1852) of Ippolito Cavalcanti's Cucina teorico-pratica. The bibliography has emphasised that each edition of the cookbook in fact constitutes an autonomous textual product: this essay aims to verify the validity of the assertion with reference to the dialect section alone. The discovery of the sixth edition of the treatise (1849), up until now considered untraceable, has made it possible to establish both a macro- and a micro-textual comparison between all the editions of the Cucina casereccia, thanks to which it has been possible to highlight the peculiarities of each of them and to reason about their evolutionary direction. The study also dwells on Cavalcanti's choice to write a section of the cookbook entirely in dialect, summarising the interpretative proposals made so far and highlighting new aspects from the text itself.