What do you think?
Rate this book
The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City
Best Food Book of 2014 by The Atlantic
Looking at the historic Italian American community of East Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, Simone Cinotto recreates the bustling world of Italian life in New York City and demonstrates how food was at the center of the lives of immigrants and their children. From generational conflicts resolved around the family table to a vibrant food-based economy of ethnic producers, importers, and restaurateurs, food was essential to the creation of an Italian American identity. Italian American foods offered not only sustenance but also powerful narratives of community and difference, tradition and innovation as immigrants made their way through a city divided by class conflict, ethnic hostility, and racialized inequalities.
Drawing on a vast array of resources including fascinating, rarely explored primary documents and fresh approaches in the study of consumer culture, Cinotto argues that Italian immigrants created a distinctive culture of food as a symbolic response to the needs of immigrant life, from the struggle for personal and group identity to the pursuit of social and economic power. Adding a transnational dimension to the study of Italian American foodways, Cinotto recasts Italian American food culture as an American "invention" resonant with traces of tradition.
Looking at the historic Italian American community of East Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, Simone Cinotto recreates the bustling world of Italian life in New York City and demonstrates how food was at the center of the lives of immigrants and their children. From generational conflicts resolved around the family table to a vibrant food-based economy of ethnic producers, importers, and restaurateurs, food was essential to the creation of an Italian American identity. Italian American foods offered not only sustenance but also powerful narratives of community and difference, tradition and innovation as immigrants made their way through a city divided by class conflict, ethnic hostility, and racialized inequalities.
Drawing on a vast array of resources including fascinating, rarely explored primary documents and fresh approaches in the study of consumer culture, Cinotto argues that Italian immigrants created a distinctive culture of food as a symbolic response to the needs of immigrant life, from the struggle for personal and group identity to the pursuit of social and economic power. Adding a transnational dimension to the study of Italian American foodways, Cinotto recasts Italian American food culture as an American "invention" resonant with traces of tradition.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2013
7 people are currently reading
121 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 3, 2024
Well researched, thorough treatment of the Italian American culinary tradition, focused mostly between 1920-1940 or so. While the book is about food, it interweaves with other aspects of the Italian American immigrant experience, including generational division, racism, the Caucasianization of Italian identity, fascism, East Harlem, the Depression, and much more. Read for class.
October 4, 2024
Before its ubiquity and popularity today, Italian food was looked down upon as unhealthy and unamerican ethnic food. Only during the 1930s and 1940s did white Americans finally begin their love affair with Italian food.
Tracing the history of Italian-American cooking and food ways in the early twentieth century, this book highlights that much of what we class as traditional Italian-American cuisine is a result of low-income families responding to the land of plenty that is America with increased consumption of meat, dairy, and fresh food, which morphed into the traditional dishes we enjoy today. It also explores how the stereotypical attitude towards family came about as a response to differing opinions between first- and second-generation Italian-Americans and the deal struck communally to gather round the table each week.
The first part of the book looks at the changing opinions of Italian-Americans towards this food and how the Italian-American diet transitioned from an alien, immigrant one to a vital part of the American culinary experience. The second part, more interestingly, covers the changing mood of White Americans towards Italian food through the growth of the Italian restaurant industry.
This is a good, well-researched history of Italian-American culture as seen and transmitted through food. Foodways are a vital part of a cultural community and none is perhaps so clear and so esteemed outside of that community as the Italian-American one.
Tracing the history of Italian-American cooking and food ways in the early twentieth century, this book highlights that much of what we class as traditional Italian-American cuisine is a result of low-income families responding to the land of plenty that is America with increased consumption of meat, dairy, and fresh food, which morphed into the traditional dishes we enjoy today. It also explores how the stereotypical attitude towards family came about as a response to differing opinions between first- and second-generation Italian-Americans and the deal struck communally to gather round the table each week.
The first part of the book looks at the changing opinions of Italian-Americans towards this food and how the Italian-American diet transitioned from an alien, immigrant one to a vital part of the American culinary experience. The second part, more interestingly, covers the changing mood of White Americans towards Italian food through the growth of the Italian restaurant industry.
This is a good, well-researched history of Italian-American culture as seen and transmitted through food. Foodways are a vital part of a cultural community and none is perhaps so clear and so esteemed outside of that community as the Italian-American one.
September 15, 2025
Personally I didn't quite like it. This may also be because it was mandatory study literature, but while this book most definitely covers interesting topics, it is also quite repetitive (mostly in part I). I felt as though I kept rereading the same couple points mixed in with different topics.
It also has some incredible strong points and research wise it is very well structured; every topic that's covered has a strong foundation.
If you are interested in studying foodways or learn more about the Italian cuisine (even as we know it today) I do recommend it!
However if you are looking for a book you can lose yourself in, even if just to learn something new, I don't think it's for you.
It also has some incredible strong points and research wise it is very well structured; every topic that's covered has a strong foundation.
If you are interested in studying foodways or learn more about the Italian cuisine (even as we know it today) I do recommend it!
However if you are looking for a book you can lose yourself in, even if just to learn something new, I don't think it's for you.
January 18, 2022
Very well written and impeccably researched, this book is a tour de force of Italian American foodways at the turn of the 20th century. Cinotto strikes an incredible balance of being thorough in his evidence and argumentation while simultaneously employing prose expertly to keep the reader interested and looking for more. This is THE book on food in Italian New York!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews