Marcella Hazan lived an improbably eventful life. An immigrant woman trained as a scientist, she never set foot in a kitchen until she married and moved to America in the 1950s. A childhood injury had left her with an injured right arm, a challenge for the physical work of food preparation.

But before long, she was not only preparing the Italian dishes she remembered from home, but writing the definitive cookbooks that introduced millions of Americans to the glories of authentic Italian cuisine. The New York Times wrote that “the impact Mrs. Hazan had on the way America cooks Italian food is impossible to overstate.”