How regional Italian cuisine became the main ingredient in the nation's political and cultural development.

Massimo Montanari draws readers into the far-flung story of how local and global influences came to flavor Italian identity. 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 its national cuisine. As disaster dispersed Italians in the nineteenth century, new immigrant stereotypes portraying Italians as "macaroni eaters" spread. However, two world wars and globalization renewed the perception of Italy and its culture as unique in the world, and the production of food constitutes an important part of that uniqueness.

Italy, the country with a hundred cities and a thousand bell towers, is also the country with a hundred cuisines and a thousand recipes. Its great variety of culinary practices reflects a history long dominated by regionalism and political division, and has led to the common conception of Italian food as a mosaic of regional customs rather than a single tradition. Nonetheless, this magnificent new book demonstrates the development of a distinctive, unified culinary tradition throughout the Italian peninsula. Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari uncover a network of culinary customs, food lore, and cooking practices, dating back as far as the Middle Ages, that are identifiably Italian: o Italians used forks 300 years before other Europeans, possibly because they were needed to handle pasta, which is slippery and dangerously hot. o Italians invented the practice of chilling drinks and may have invented ice cream. o Italian culinary practice influenced the rest of Europe to place more emphasis on vegetables and less on meat. o Salad was a distinctive aspect of the Italian meal as early as the sixteenth century. The authors focus on culinary developments in the late medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras, aided by a wealth of cookbooks produced throughout the early modern period. They show how Italy's culinary identities emerged over the course of the centuries through an exchange of information and techniques among geographical regions and social classes. Though temporally, spatially, and socially diverse, these cuisines refer to a common experience that can be described as Italian. Thematically organized around key issues in culinary history and beautifully illustrated, Italian Cuisine is a rich history of the ingredients, dishes, techniques, and social customs behind the Italian food we know and love today.

This book is a novel and original collection of essays on Italians and food. Food culture is central both to the way Italians perceive their national identity and to the consolidation of Italianicity in global context. More broadly, being so heavily symbolically charged, Italian foodways are an excellent vantage point from which to explore consumption and identity in the context of the commodity chain, and the global/local dialectic. The contributions from distinguished experts cover a range of topics including food and consumer practices in Italy, cultural intermediators and foodstuff narratives, traditions of production and regional variation in Italian foodways, and representation of Italianicity through food in old and new media. Although rooted in sociology, Italians and Food draws on literature from history, anthropology, semiotics and media studies, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of food studies, consumer culture, cultural sociology, and contemporary Italian studies.

Pizza. Spaghetti and meatballs. Are these beloved foods Italian or American? Italy declares pizza from Naples the only true pizza, but what about New York, New Haven, and Chicago pizza? The media says spaghetti and meatballs isn't found in Italy, but it exists around the globe. Worldwide, people regard pizza and spaghetti and meatballs as Italian. Why? Because the Italian immigrants to the United States brought their foodways with them 100 years ago and created successful food-related businesses. But a new message is emerging--that the only real Italian food comes from the contemporary Italian mainland. However, this ideology negatively affects Italian Americans, who still face discrimination that pervades the culture--from movies and TV to religion, academia, the workplace, and every aspect of their existence. In Authentic Italian, Italian-American food writer Dina M. Di Maio explores the history and food contributions of Italian immigrants in the United States and beyond. With thorough research and evidence, Di Maio proves the classic dishes like pizza and spaghetti and meatballs so beloved by the world are, indeed, Italian. Much more than a food history, Authentic Italian packs a sociopolitical punch and shows that the Italian-American people made Italian food what it is today. They and their food are real, true, and authentic Italian.

Food and Fashion accompanies a major exhibition at The Museum at FIT, New York's only museum dedicated solely to the art of fashion. This beautifully illustrated book featuring over 100 enticing full-color images, from fashion runways to fine art photography and period cookbooks, examines the influence of food culture through the lens of fashion over the last 250 years. It focuses on the ways that food culture has expressed itself in fashion and how these connect to broader socio-cultural change, examining how vital both have been in expressing cultural movements across centuries, and specifically exploring the role food plays in fashionable expression. With its superb selection of images, and thought-provoking and engaging discussion, Food and Fashion appeals to fashion enthusiasts who have an overlapping interest in food and food studies, including scholars and students, those who enjoy the fashion of food, and all who appreciate the visual culture of food, fashion, and art.

Mimi explores the beautiful coasts and countrysides of Italy in this lavishly photographed cookbook featuring simple, authentic recipes inspired by the country's devoted producers and rich food heritage. Through her gorgeous cookbooks A Kitchen in France and French Country Cooking, a generation of readers fell in love with Mimi Thorisson, her lively family, and their band of smooth fox terriers. In their newest cookbook, the Thorissons put a pause on their lives in the idyllic French countryside to start a new adventure in Italy and satisfy their endless curiosity and passion for the magic of Italian cooking. Old World Italian captures their journey and the culinary treasures they discovered. From Tuscany to Umbria to Naples and more, Mimi dives into Italy's diverse regional cuisines and shares 100 recipes for authentic, classic dishes, enriched by conversations with devoted local food experts who share their time-worn techniques and stories. You'll luxuriously indulge in dishes culled from across the country, such as plump agnolotti bathed in sage and butter from the north, the tomato-rich ragus and pastas of the southwest, and the multi-faceted, seafood-laden cuisine of Sicily. The mysteries of Italian food culture will unravel as you learn to execute a perfect Neapolitan-style pizza at home or make the most sublime, yet elemental cacio e pepe. Full of local color, history, and culture, plus evocative, sumptuous photography shot by husband Oddur Thorisson, Old World Italian transports you to a seat at the family's table in Italy, where you may never want to leave.

First published in 1891, Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangier bene has come to be recognized as the most significant Italian cookbook of modern times. It was reprinted thirteen times and had sold more than 52,000 copies in the years before Artusi's death in 1910, with the number of recipes growing from 475 to 790. And while this figure has not changed, the book has consistently remained in print. Although Artusi was himself of the upper classes and it was doubtful he had ever touched a kitchen utensil or lit a fire under a pot, he wrote the book not for professional chefs, as was the nineteenth-century custom, but for middle-class family cooks: housewives and their domestic helpers. His tone is that of a friendly advisor – humorous and nonchalant. He indulges in witty anecdotes about many of the recipes, describing his experiences and the historical relevance of particular dishes. Artusi's masterpiece is not merely a popular cookbook; it is a landmark work in Italian culture. This English edition (first published by Marsilio Publishers in 1997) features a delightful introduction by Luigi Ballerini that traces the fascinating history of the book and explains its importance in the context of Italian history and politics. The illustrations are by the noted Italian artist Giuliano Della Casa.

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.

Outside of Italy, the country’s culture and its food appear to be essentially synonymous. And indeed, as The Italian Way makes clear, preparing, cooking, and eating food play a central role in the daily activities of Italians from all walks of life. In this beautifully illustrated book, Douglas Harper and Patrizia Faccioli present a fascinating and colorful look at the Italian table. The Italian Way focuses on two dozen families in the city of Bologna, elegantly weaving together Harper’s outsider perspective with Faccioli’s intimate knowledge of the local customs. The authors interview and observe these families as they go shopping for ingredients, cook together, and argue over who has to wash the dishes. Throughout, the authors elucidate the guiding principle of the Italian table—a delicate balance between the structure of tradition and the joy of improvisation. With its bite-sized history of food in Italy, including the five-hundred-year-old story of the country’s cookbooks, and Harper’s mouth-watering photographs, The Italian Way is a rich repast—insightful, informative, and inviting.