Italian Identity in the Kitchen, or Food and the Nation

Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History

by Massimo Montanari

Another entertaining and surprising food history by the scholar who has come to define the discipline, this volume draws readers into the far-flung story of how local cuisine came to shape a collective Italian identity. From the Romans' encounters with barbarian tribes to the revival and reinvention of local Italian cooking in the twentieth century, Massimo Montanari shows how local food practices flavored the nation's political and cultural making over time.

The fusion of ancient Roman cuisine, which consisted of bread, wine, and olives, with the barbarian diet, rooted in bread, milk, and meat, first formed the basics of modern eating across Europe. From there, Montanari highlights the importance of the Italian city in the development of gastronomic taste in the Middle Ages, the role of Arab traders in positioning the country as the supreme producers of pasta, and the nation's healthful contribution of vegetables to the fifteenth-century European diet. Italy became a receiving country with the discovery of the New World, absorbing corn, potatoes, and tomatoes into their national cuisine. As disaster dispersed Italians in the nineteenth century, new immigrant stereotypes portraying Italians as "macaroni eaters" spread, yet two world wars and globalization brought the reunification and revival of Italian national identity, centered on its global strength as a traditional regional food producer.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Italy, History, Food History, Food and Drink, Cooking

106 pages, Hardcover

First published June 18, 2013

About the author

Professor of medieval history at Bologna University who has written widely on food history.

Reviews

[Nicola Palumbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro agevole sia per lessico che per lunghezza per farsi una idea di cosa sia l’identità culinaria italiana. Un libro perfetto per chi non ha mai letto sul tema.

[Hannah Trower · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immensely readable text, academic in vocabulary but not at all dry, about a delicious topic. The text starts in the Middle Ages and brings us to the present, covering the reasons for and associations with food as Italian or as belonging to any number of local identities associated with region or city. Read for class. Highly recommend. Recommend that you don't read on an empty stomach.

[Emily Kruse · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you’re reading the translated version of this book, there’s a lot of extra filler to sift through in order to get to the main concepts of the book. The original Italian version might read better, but this hundred page book took me several more hours to read than it should have. However, once you get past the arbitrary and pretentious wording, there’s some pretty interesting information and themes surrounding the history of Italian cuisine and culture.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I libri del professor Montanari sono una garanzia quando si parla di storia dell'alimentazione.
Un libro storico non convenzionale e del tutto piacevole da leggere. Assolutamente non noioso e scorrevole. Una lettura importante per capire molto della nostra italianità e del nostro attaccamento alle tradizioni della tavola.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Se nella storia della lingua a un certo punto un dialetto si è imposto sugli altri, guadagnandosi, lui solo, la qualifica di "italiano" grazie al prestigio ineguagliato di Dante, di Boccaccio e di Petrarca, la storia della cucina non ha conosciuto alcun Dante né Accademie della Crusca"

[Mehmet Kalaycı · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un breve riassunto della storia dell'identità italiana in cucina. Lo consiglio ai principianti come me.

[angelica :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars bc it saved my essay

[Reading · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much meh

[Grouchomax · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conciso, troppo: al limite della stitichezza. Un distillato di Montanari per chi lo conosce già.

[Cara Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for school. Short but very informative.

[Elisuia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Qui ne faccio una questione quantitative: 100 pagine scritte a caratteri grandini. Boh.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good so far