a country which had been all of a piece in the Roman Empire, indeed the centrepiece thereof, led a fragmented existence from the early Middle Ages until the 19th century, when under the auspices of Garibaldi it took its present political form. This fragmentation did not prevent it from being the cradle of the Renaissance in the arts, including the culinary ones. While the civilizations of France and Spain were still in bud, those of Italy (plural because of the numerous city states which shared the credit) were already flowering.
The first printed cookery book was that of Platina (1475). It was preceded by many important manuscripts, especially that of Maestro Martino, and followed by many other books (see Italian cookery books), a publishing cavalcade which was rivalled by those in Germany and England but ahead of what France produced. Indeed Italy was clearly in the vanguard, so far as the culinary arts were concerned, of the whole of Europe. Whatever view one takes of the contribution of Catherine de' Medici (see culinary mythology) to the development of cookery in France, it is indisputable that Italy was leading the way during the Renaissance. By the end of the 16th century, however, the genius displayed by Italian artists working in many fields, including the kitchen, showed signs of fatigue, even exhaustion. As Anna del Conte (1987) observes, it was around then that ‘the leadership of European gastronomy moved over the Alps into France’.
One may speculate about the underlying reasons for this change. Were the city-states of Italy now too small to provide the base for even greater artistic advances than they had already achieved? Were questions of political and economic power involved? No doubt a full explanation would be highly complex. And it may be that this whole concept of gastronomic leadership does not represent the most fruitful way of looking at these matters. If the French went on to create their haute cuisine, which flourished so noticeably in the 19th century and tended to dominate the world of expensive hotels and high-class restaurants until quite recent times, are they to be envied and the Italians to be seen as losers in some sort of inter-cultural competition? The answer is surely not, for although they have not occupied the commanding heights of haute cuisine (a phrase for which they have no equivalent) they have succeeded better than any other European country in developing and spreading over most parts of the world a cuisine which has the enormous merits of being cheerful, tasty, varied, inexpensive, and unworrying (no need to worship international star chefs or quail in front of snooty head waiters or act as though the cost of some pretentious dish is no problem—on the contrary, all one has to do is enjoy the food, whether cooked at home or ordered in a restaurant). It will be for people in the 3rd millennium to decide which countries or cultures have made the greatest contribution, in terms of food, to human happiness, but it seems safe to predict that the Italians will be up there at or near the top of the list.
One other matter to be settled in the 3rd millennium concerns a speculative prediction advanced by Fortey (1998) in his excellent ‘unauthorised biography’ of Life (on earth), where he muses on the size of the pepper mills wielded by Italian waiters, suggesting that the evolutionary phenomenon of ‘larger and larger’, familiar from examples such as the giraffe's neck and the peacock's tail, could apply here. He has already noted that the mills have been growing in size with the passage of time, and has observed ‘tiny waiters struggling with vast black grinders, all the while trying to smile and keep up the banter’. What if there is an accelerating and runaway further increase? ‘In my scenario,’ he writes, ‘the process continues until the pepper-grinder becomes so large that the waiter staggers around on wobbly legs, unable to lift it.’ Such gigantism usually leads to some form of extinction. One must hope that in this instance it would apply to the grinders rather than to the restaurants or the waiters, whose tendency to bring elements of comic opera into the gastronomic scene is to be applauded.
Applause is due also to the writers of various kinds who have done much to record the wealth of Italian foodstuffs. The exceptionally numerate di Corato, whose 451 formaggi d'Italia (1977) and 928 condimenti d'Italia (1978) are but two of a series, is one example. The works sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and bodies such as INSOR (the National Institute of Rural Sociology), producing works such as ‘atlases’ of typical food by category (cheeses, cured meats, and so on), are another. Thirdly, there are the books devoted to the wide range of different cuisines within the frontiers of Italy and the consequent wealth of different recipes which are a characteristic of Italian cookery as a whole. A compilation such as that of Anna Maria Gosetti della Salda (1967), with more than 2,000 regional recipes, is tangible evidence of this. It may be true that, once again, the political and economic history of Italy is the root cause of this astonishing array of local culinary traditions. It could have been the fragmentation of Italy up to the time of its unification which ensured that these local traditions were kept alive; and that a new overarching tradition came into being, namely the tradition of maintaining traditions.
Whatever the explanation, the traditions are strong and their maintenance is encouraged by the Italian authorities and also by the growing literature on the subject. Perhaps because it is such an attractive subject, it has evoked much good writing, in English as well as in Italian, during recent decades. The charming overview by Claudia Roden (1989) serves as a good introduction.
In Sicily, where the cuisine was renowned in the time of classical Greece and during the Roman Empire, there was a strong Arab influence in early medieval times and this is still highly visible. The market in Palermo, La Vuccirìa, displays many sweet items of Arab origin, using almonds and dried fruit; and on one view of the history of pasta some of the kinds on display would have their origin in items introduced by the Arabs when they occupied the island from the 9th to the 11th centuries. Sicilian savoury dishes often include tell-tale ingredients such as raisins, almonds again, and so on.
Naples, one of the three most historically important ports of Italy (the others being Venice and Genoa), was in medieval times a gateway for the entry of Catalan cookery into Italy, and has continued to play a lively and pioneering role (one thinks of the tomato and above all of pizza) in Italian foodways, helped by the extraordinary degree of animation—high even by Italian standards—with which Neapolitans conduct their lives.
A calmer spirit prevails in Tuscany, famed for its traditional breads and olive groves, and part of the region which the Etruscans dominated before their civilization succumbed to the Romans. Parenti (1972) has pieced together the tantalizingly sparse information which survives about Etruscan foodways; but how much may have been owed to these by the Romans, and by those who in turn were the heirs of the Roman kitchen, remains uncertain.
In the far north of Italy, in the provinces bordering on Austria and Switzerland (gateways to the north), the picture is strikingly different. Noodles resembling those of C. and N. Europe, rather than the kinds of pasta familiar in the rest of Italy, are present, and in Lombardy the consumption of pasta was negligible until quite recent times, its place having been occupied by polenta and risotto. There is a similar north–south difference over the use of fats and oils, olive oil having been used in the south, lard (pork fat) in the centre, and butter in the north.
The frontiers of Italy are by no means the frontiers of Italian foods. Pasta and pizza are world conquerors. Italian ice cream vendors are found in all continents, trading on the reputation which Italy deservedly gained for making ice creams of unrivalled quality. Parma ham and parmesan cheese are two other invaders of foreign territory. Italian culinary influence spreads far and wide and is particularly noticeable in the USA.
See also classical Rome.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Anderson, Burton (1994), Treasures of the Italian Table, New York: Willam Morrow.
Capatti, Alberto and Montanari, Massimo (2003), Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, trans Aine O'Healy, New York: Columbia UP.
Carluccio, Antonio and Priscilla (1997), Carluccio's Complete Italian Food, London: Quadrille.
del Conte, Anna (1987), Gastronomy of Italy, New York: Prentice Hall Press.
della Salda, Anna Gosetti (1967), Le ricette regionali italiane, Milan: ‘La Cucina Italiana’.
Fant, Maureen (1998), Dictionary of Italian Cuisine, Hopewell, NJ: Echo Press.
Mariani, John (1998), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink, New York: Broadway.
Parasecoli, Fabio (2004), Food Culture in Italy, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Parenti, Giovanni Righi (1972), La cucina degli Etruschi, Milan: Sugar.
Roden, Claudia (1989), The Food of Italy, London: Chatto & Windus.
