Italian Food and Identity

5 Words to Describe

regional, simple, rules-based, artisan made, anti-foreign

cucina povera vs haute cuisine

cooking of the poor

high cuisine (french)

Honey Types

monofloral: 80% from one flower

mille fiori: thousand flower honey

acacia: sweet from trees

castagno: chesnut honey

bosco: from forest

corbezzolo: rare/expensive tastes like poision

Italian Immigration Patterns

1850-1920: migrants came from north to short and long America

1920s-60s: italians go to northern europe

1960s+ : southern italians move north for industrialization

food advertising

1,) family

2.) tradition

3.) countryside

Gelato timeline

14th and 15c when ice sold in mornings

• base is fior di latte

American in Rome movie (1954)

bro wants hollywood

Timeline of cooking

1.) cooking culture established with pelligrino 1891

2.) poverty and starvation 1935-1945

3.) post war vacuum and identity crisis: 1945 and beyond

4.) Italy becomes rich late 1940s

info about olive oil and trees

• technically a bush

• harvested in fall

• green are beggining of sason black is later (green only good for eating)

making chocolate

turn to powder

pour in wate and fish out the shells

as you heat water get white scum (cocoa butter) and scoop off

get black tarry residue (cocoa solids)

land of cockayne

legend from the middle ages of a land made of food. dreams of not being hungry/poor

chocolate classifications

white: cocoa butter

milk chocolate: cocoa butter + solids (5-30%)

dark chocolate: solids only (70% and up)

colombian exchange

turkey, tomatoes, corn, potato ,squash, tobacco (slave trade based on sugar)

gianduia

hazelnut infused choclate
Turin: firm venchi
Tuscany: firm vestri (better)

perugian choclate

perugiana firm, baci, cheaper (imagine hersheys, cadbury)

italian food rules mostly concerned with

digestion

modica

original sicilian chocolate based on spanish technique with sugar lowkey grainy

Pizza timeline

late 18thC tomato on flatbread

margarita in 1930s

later comes to florence from american immigrants

describing italian consumers

shop in small businesses

demanding (quality)

nationalist (lack of interest in foreign food)

conservative (not changing dietary style)

interest in fresh food (shopping everyday)

Italian Shops

enotoca: wine

forno: bread shop

fruttivendalo: fruits and vegetables

gelatoria: gelato

paninoteca: sandwhich shop

pasticceria: pasteries

rosticcerias: takeaway readymade food

types of italian restaurants

osteria: cheapest wood and sharing table

trattoria: more relaxed table cloth

ristorante: fancier with table cloth

Slow food movement

Carlo Petrini in late 80s (arcigola)

• mcdonalds in rome 1989

• 2000s were peak slow food

• words to describe: buono (tasty), pultio (clean), fair (just)

French Terroir

you have to get certain food from certain places

culinary modernism

industrialized the food system in order to make food accessible, slow food hates this

diet for small planet

everyone should have access to food and could if we were vegetarian

Wine Spectrums

1. light vs bold (high vs low alc)
2. sweet vs dry (sweet vs absence)
3. smooth vs tanic (dry feeling)

theories of pasta origin

1. imported from semetic areas (arab and jewish)
2. always been around since roman times (no records)
3. invented in CITIES during the renisance (biolable bread)

farm laborers

contadino: sharecropper (most common

padrone: landowner boss

braccisaforter: strongarm, field hand