Italian Food History
The 1891 cookbook by Pellegrino Artusi that helped unify Italy through food.
What is Science in the Kitchen?
This is what most poor Italians in the 19th century survived off of
What is bread?
In An American in Rome, Nando ends up eating this classic Italian food.
What is spaghetti?
The main food being sold In Pizza on Credit
What is pizza?
After unification, Italy tried to create national unity through this daily activity.
What is eating / cooking?
This dish was considered poor people’s street food in Naples, Before it became famous worldwide.
What is pizza?
A city that had a lot of hunger and is described in Matilde Serao’s essay What Do They Eat?
What is Naples?
Nando tries to act like he’s from this foreign country.
What is the United States?
The woman in De Sica’s film sells pizza using this type of payment.
What is credit?
Artusi’s recipes encouraged Italians to eat with this quality, not too much, not too little.
What is moderation?
The word that describes how southern foods like pizza and pasta became symbols of the whole nation.
What is Southernization?
Serao called Naples “the bowels of the city” to show that it suffered from this.
What is hunger?
Artusi believed cooking at home could teach this national value.
What is civic virtue / being a good Italian citizen?
In An American in Rome, the spaghetti scene makes fun of this kind of cultural influence.
What is Americanization?
When southern foods became fashionable, poverty was turned into this emotion.
What is pride?
The author that studied how Italy’s population grew faster than its ability to feed itself.
Who is Massimo Montanari?
In Pizza on Credit, this happens when the husband wastes the pizza money.
What is the way the family goes into debt?
La Cecla says that “authentic Italian food” is really this type of cultural act.
What is a performance?
Both films use food to show that being Italian means holding on to this.
What is cultural identity?
La Cecla says Italian food is sold globally through this feeling of nostalgia.
What is “Made in Italy” nostalgia / marketing?
Artusi taught that health depends on two things: temperance and this physical activity.
What is exercise?
De Sica’s film and Serao’s story both show that poverty can still have this human quality.
What is dignity?
This word describes how migrants abroad changed simple Italian food into rich, abundant dishes.
What is transformation (or “reinvention”)?
In both movies, food represents more than eating, it represents this kind of emotional value.
What is love and pride / belonging?
The overall story of Italian food goes from hunger to this positive idea.
What is heritage / cultural pride?