“Neither carbonara, nor pizza, nor panettone, nor tiramisu are typical of Italian gastronomy.” “Italian cuisine is more American than Italian.” These are some of the statements by historian Alberto Grandi that have made an entire country angry. It is, according to him, “an invention of tradition” to forge a new identity after World War II.
The answers have not been slow to appear: “They are trying to discredit us by questioning the Italian nature of emblematic recipes and products. Those who accuse us of being gastronationalists may only be envious of our successes,” said the Italian Undersecretary for Agriculture, Luigi D’Eramo, to the media.
The spark that unleashed all this controversy was the article published by the British economic newspaper Financial Times last Sunday. The title already presaged that it was not going to go unnoticed: “Everything that, as an Italian, I thought I knew about Italian cuisine is wrong.” In it, the journalist Marianna Giusti talks with Alberto Grandi, associate professor of Economic History at the University of Parma, who has long caused outrage by questioning the Italian gastronomic identity.
In 2018 he published his book Invented Designation of Origin (Denominazione di Origine Inventata, in Italian), where he dismantles the origin of some of the most emblematic dishes and products of his country. “Is Parmigiano Reggiano authentic? It’s made in Wisconsin!” he claims. If the post had already caused enough of a stir, the historian launched a podcast along the same lines. And, although until now he had not granted any interviews outside of Italy, his theories have already spread throughout the world.
In the Financial Times article, he argues that the vast majority of Italians did not know what a pizza was until the middle of the 20th century. He also reiterates that the origin of carbonara pasta is actually American, or that panettone or tiramisu are recent culinary creations. “Italian cuisine is more American than Italian,” he declares.
His theories have created a large number of opponents for him in Italy, where “he cannot leave home without an escort,” he jokes. But it is true that his unpopularity is growing in many quarters. Yesterday, the undersecretary of Agriculture, Luigi D’Eramo, sent him a forceful message. “They are trying to discredit us by questioning the Italian nature of recipes and products such as carbonara, pizza, panettone or Parmigiano Reggiano. Those who accuse Italians of being gastronationalists may only be envious of our successes,” he said in statements collected by EFE .
The Italian author embraces the thesis of the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm on the “invention of tradition”. “When a group breaks with its past and becomes orphaned of identity, it invents traditions and elevates them to the category of founding myth”, he maintains. In his opinion, at the end of World War II, when the country began to recover economically, “it needed to forge a new identity that would help them forget and the emigrants, in turn, needed myths with which to dignify their humble origins.”
And that is the reason why “there is no record of some products before the middle of the 20th century.” Panettone did not become an artisan product until the 1970s and recipe books did not mention tiramisu until the 1980s. Parmiggiano does recognize a thousand-year history, but affirms that until the 1960s the pieces did not weigh more than 10 kilos and that its texture was much smoother and creamier. The original version of this cheese is only kept in Wisconsin (where it arrived at the beginning of the 20th century with the arrival of Italian emigrants), but not in the Parma region, where it is an emblem.
Nor does he refrain from attacking another of the country’s symbols: pizza. The historian declares in the article that this preparation is very similar to what, for centuries, was eaten in other Mediterranean countries. As if that were not enough, he also states that the world’s first pizzeria opened in 1911 in New York, according to his research. “For my father, in the ’70s, pizza was as exotic as sushi is for us,” he explains.
The published article has not gone down well in Italy. Many chefs remember the crimes that are committed when preparing their traditional recipes and the largest association of breeders and farmers in Italy, Coldiretti, dismisses the statements as a “surreal attack” carried out “from fanciful reconstructions” that call into question “the most deeply rooted national culinary traditions”.
This same entity highlights on its website that the offensive against the symbolic dishes of Italy coincides with the announcement of its candidacy as Unesco’s Intangible Heritage of Humanity. They also ensure that such statements carry “worrying economic and labor implications.” The restaurant sector has also shown its discontent and has defended its products against the Americans.
