print
Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong
by johan

    A Google search for “Salvini mangia” (Salvini eats) draws a farcical carousel of scenes: wide-mouthed Salvini devouring spaghetti, grinning Salvini tucking into a giant pizza, aproned Salvini checking rows of whole prosciutto legs, Salvini giving a thumbs-up next to a Sicilian cannoli, bare-chested Salvini grilling meat, tanned Salvini sticking a gelato cone in his mouth, sleepy Salvini biting into a Nutella toast.

    These politicians understand the power of what Grandi terms “gastronationalism”. Who cares if the traditional food culture they promote is partly based on lies, recipes dreamt up by conglomerates or food imported from America? Few things are more reassuring and agreeable than an old lady making tortellini.

    It wasn’t always like this. “The grandparents knew it was a lie,” Grandi tells me, finishing the last of his prosecco. “The philologic concern with ingredient provenance is a very recent phenomenon.” Indeed it’s hard to imagine that people who survived the second world war eating chestnuts, as my grandfather did, would be concerned about using pork jowl instead of pork belly in a pasta recipe. Or as Grandi puts it, “Their ‘tradition’ was trying not to starve.”

    When asked if the obsession with a national cuisine started with the baby boomers like him, a generation that never experienced Italian cooking before the postwar period of expansion, he smiles: “Indeed, like many other things, this too is all our fault.”