Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (65 page)

Anyone who has read this book will no longer wonder why Italians love to talk about food. Indeed Petrarch, in
De remediis utriusque fortunae
(Remedies for fortune fair and foul), noted that his compatriots preferred talking about food to discussing literature: “These are the just deserts of our rotten age, which neglects the needs of learning in favor of the kitchen and scrutinizes cooks but not the scribes.”
¹

But even when writers are actually discussed, or when literary or artistic movements are created, if you look closely you'll find that the Italian mind inevitably returns to matters of cuisine, the table, and food. Take the Futurists, for example, with their cultural revolution, and read the proclamations they launched from the very beginning: “While recognizing that badly or crudely nourished men have achieved great things in the past, we affirm this truth: men think, dream and act according to what they eat and drink.”
²

Since it is necessary and even indispensable for Italians to talk about food, there's all the more reason to talk about it at the table. Indeed, these are the best moments! Among the other pleasures of the table, Brillat-Savarin, the illustrious metaphysician and philosopher of cuisine, particularly appreciated the joy of convivial conversation. Food, he wrote, is life's greatest pleasure:

 

Aphorisms of the Professor. Aphorism V. The Creator, when he obliges man to eat, invites him to do so by appetite, and rewards him by pleasure . . . Aphorism VII. The pleasure of the table belongs to all ages, to all conditions, to all countries, and to all eras; it mingles with all other pleasures, and remains at last to console us for their departure . . . Aphorism IX. The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star . . . At the first course every one eats and pays no attention to conversation; all ranks and grades are forgotten together in the great manufacture of life. When, however, hunger begins to be satisfied, reflection begins, and conversation commences. The person who, hitherto, had been a mere consumer, becomes an amiable guest.
³

 

By Andrei Bourtsev

It is true that not all philosophers saw things the way he did. The hypochondriac poet Giacomo Leopardi was very skeptical with regard to convivial conversations at mealtimes:

 

Now, I cannot comprehend why the one time of day when the mouth is occupied, when the external organs of speech are otherwise employed (a most interesting employment, whose proficient execution matters greatly, since man's well-being, sturdy physical condition, and therefore sound moral and mental states as well depend largely on good digestion, and digestion cannot be good if it is not begun well in the mouth, according to the well-known proverb and medical aphorism), must be precisely a time when we are obliged to talk more than ever, given that there are many who, devoting the rest of the day to study or seclusion for whatever reason, only converse at the table.
⁴

 

But despite the views of taciturn men such as he, the majority of Italians, as well as true lovers of Italy, would only give up chatting about food at the table if their tongues were to wither. In this school of thought, communicating one's culinary tastes to the world is a declaration of belonging—to a certain city or town, as well as to a macroregion of the country, east or west, north or south. Moreover, it's a demonstration of one's involvement in the grand Italian culinary tradition, popular and beloved by all. It should be evident from reading through the chapters of this book that the culinary code common to Italians reflects both a variety of small hometowns and a general sense of the entire history of Italian culture, which is really a collage of cultures.

The
Fischietto
of January 13, 1849, published a “Scena storica al Caffè del Cambio” (Historic scene at the Café del Cambio), where a democrat hurls a stool at an aristocrat's head:

 

(The room is filled with people eating, among them many deputies of Parliament.)

BARON N.
: Waiter, bring me some bread.

WAITER:
Would you like some
grissini
?

BARON:
I don't eat
grissini
; I don't wish to support Piedmont.

A PIEDMONTESE:
Waiter.

WAITER:
Yes, sir?

THE PIEDMONTESE
: Bring me a plate of antipasto.

WAITER:
Would you like some salami?

THE PIEDMONTESE:
No, I don't want any salami. I don't wish to support the barons who have been granted amnesty.
⁵

 

In this succinct example we see how an alimentary metaphor can convey political and idealistic meanings, in place of a lengthy, positivistic-rationalistic exposition. Moreover, the food metaphor has the merit of containing a certain amount of good-natured humor,
which is the principal glue that holds Italian culture together, as well as its essential engine.

Literature, painting, and history also speak to us in the language of the culinary code. It's a code that includes amusing metonymies, gags of all kinds, and cheerful burlesque parodies, thanks to which everyone enjoys themselves more.

In speaking about small Italian hometowns, we are not always aware of the extent to which Italians identify the different regions with specific products or dishes, whose names have become synonymous with the culture and history of a certain region. The entire geography of Italy and its conquerors, the entire history of invasions and incursions, political dealings and wars, is contained in these names.

 

The Neapolitan writer Gabriele Fasano (second half of the seventeenth century), in his
Lo Tasso napoletano, Gerusalemme liberata votata a llengua nostra
(
Neapolitan Tasso: Jerusalem Delivered in our language
), lists the playful nicknames of the inhabitants of various places in Italy: the Lombards are
mangiarape
, or turnip eaters; the Venetians
magnapolenta
, or polenta eaters; the people of Vicenza
magnagatti
, or cat eaters; the Tuscan and Emilian mountain folk
mangiamarroni
, or chestnut eaters; those of Cremona
mangiafagioli
, or bean eaters; the Abruzzese
mangiatori di panunto
, who eat
panunto
or oiled bread; the Florentines
cacapiselli
, who shit peas; and the Neapolitans
cacafoglie
, who shit leaves: “That's what we Neapolitans are antonomastically called.” Naples is referred to as the “city of broccoli” by Antonio Abbondanti in the
Gazzette menippee di Parnaso
(Menippean journals of Parnassus):

 

. . . what matters most, a lot of broccoli . . .

 

Whereby the location is so fair and pleasant
that nature seems to reign
in that most fertile land,
since it seems that April there is always verdant
amid turnip, cabbages, and chard
and among those great lords of the seven
seggi
. . .
^*

 

The same Antonio Abbondanti, in the book
Viaggio di Colonia
(Cologne journey), writes about the prince of Bisignano (whose feudal estate is located in Calabria), who was of Neapolitan origin:

 

. . . with that the prince of Bisignano had betaken himself
through those bitter seas,
toward his native broccoli and clear waters . . .

 

In the heroicomic poem
L'Agnano zeffonato
(the poem is in Neapolitan dialect, and the Agnano of the title refers to a volcanic crater found northwest of Naples in the Campi Flegrei) by Andrea Perruccio, broccoli is depicted as a blazon on the flag of Naples:

 

 

This the Neapolitans carried,
who make a big fuss over leaves . . .

 

On their banner was a bunch
of broccoli, and the words: In my belly
I have hope of victory!

 

 

This association of the flag of Naples with the image of broccoli triggered the idea of describing the regional dishes and typical products as “gastronomic emblems.” In a novella by Giambattista Basile we read: “Farewell, parsnips and beetroots, farewell fritters [
zép-pole
, fritters with honey] and cakes; farewell cauliflowers and pickled tunny fish; . . . Farewell Naples, the
nec plus ultra
. . . I leave you and shall be deprived of your cabbage soups; driven out of this dear village [Naples was called
il casalone
, the big village], oh, my broccoli, I must leave you behind!”
⁶

Awareness of the origin of all products served at the table was typical of the population of the Italian peninsula, Sicily, and Sardinia since the days of antiquity. Gourmands in imperial Rome were distinguished by unusual discernment and competence in this area. Juvenal recalls a certain Montano: “None in my day had greater gastronomic skill: whether oysters were natives of Circeii or the Lucrine rocks or bred in the beds of Richborough he had the knowledge to discern at the first bite, and could tell at a glance the habitat of a shell-fish.”
⁷

This art of identification bordered on a mania among the ancients. Enormous importance
was attributed not only to the place of origin but also to the time of the animal's capture or the harvesting of fruits intended for the table. Jean-François Revel writes about the chef Archestratus of Syracuse:

 

But what is most striking about Archestratus' advice is the extraordinary attention paid to places and origins. This is a constant preoccupation of the cuisine of antiquity: the place where an animal is caught, the region where a fruit or vegetable is cultivated are the object of observations that are as meticulous, as lengthy as the description as to the ways in which these products are cooked or prepared for the table, and often even more so. It would thus seem that the ancient Greeks and Romans had
a more acute sensibility than ours when it came to the native tang of things and the characteristics of different regions
[italics mine]. Sturgeon (galeos), for instance, was to be eaten principally at Rhodes. And if one chances to see one in the market of this city, it is necessary, if need be, according to Archestratus, “to carry it off by force, even at the price of later having to bear the legal consequences of this kidnapping.”
⁸

 

The French scholar, referring to a less acute perception of typical local products in contemporaries as compared with the ancients, is perhaps not referring to Italians. As far as Italy is concerned, in fact, we can say that everything has remained as it was in Archestratus's day. For centuries, a strong awareness of belonging to small hometowns—the places of their origin, or their permanent residence—has remained deeply rooted in the psychology of Italians. This attachment becomes
campanilismo
, local pride, and often manifests itself through a code of social identification based on purely culinary criteria: “I am one of those who eat this, and I am against those who eat that.”

“The least breath of published criticism against his local poet or sculptor will set any Italian in a towering rage—a fury whose expression outstrips the most elementary bounds of decency,” wrote Stendhal on January 1, 1817.
⁹
“I, who had grown firmly convinced of the high intelligence of the Bolognese, now find myself in imminent peril of having to eat my own words. For ninety unrelenting minutes I have been subjected to an eruption of backstairs patriotism of the most imbecile variety—and in the best of company at that! This is indeed the besetting sin of Italy.”
¹⁰

Indeed, everyone fights with all his might against “the others” to defend what is his, uniquely so. Life in the medieval village, where isolated neighbors in cantons, districts, or quarters were divided by centuries-old rivalries (once described by Shakespeare), was subject to this law. Yet even today, during the Palio held in Piazza del Campo in Siena, in
July and August, the jockeys of the Contrada dell'Onda compete with those of the district of Tortuca in a breakneck race, putting their reputation and destiny on the line.

 

You do not need telling that these different peoples are very far from forming a homogeneous nation. Bergamo detests Milan, which is likewise execrated by Novara and Pavia; whereas your Milanese himself, being fully preoccupied with keeping a good table and acquiring a warm pastran (overcoat) against the winter, hates nobody; for hatred would merely disturb the unruffled serenity of his pleasures. Florence, which in days gone by so bitterly abhorred Siena, now is so reduced to impotence that she has no strength for loathing left; yet, allowing for these two exceptions, I search in vain to discover a third; each city detests its neighbours, and is mortally detested in return.
¹¹

 

And yet, despite the flaring of passions, the diversity of attachments, the desire to fight for one's own bell tower, this world of contrasts is actually coherent. Sidestepping the provincial narcissism, everything is bound together, especially at the table, by the common culinary language. Unity under the gastronomic emblems extends to the entire nation. As variegated as the peninsula is, some gastronomic topics fill the souls of both southerners and northerners with equal pride.