Representing Italy Through Food

Peter Naccarato, Zachary Nowak, Elgin K. Eckert

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781350085756
• eBook ISBN: 9781474280433
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Italian History
• Index: Social Sciences

Italy has long been romanticized as an idyllic place. Italian food and foodways play an important part in this romanticization – from bountiful bowls of fresh pasta to bottles of Tuscan wine. While such images oversimplify the complex reality of modern Italy, they are central to how Italy is imagined by Italians and non-Italians alike. Representing Italy through Food is the first book to examine how these perceptions are constructed, sustained, promoted, and challenged. Recognizing the power of representations to construct reality, the book explores how Italian food and foodways are represented across the media – from literature to film and television, from cookbooks to social media, and from marketing campaigns to advertisements. Bringing together established scholars such as Massimo Montanari and Ken Albala with emerging scholars in the field, the thirteen chapters offer new perspectives on Italian food and culture. Featuring both local and global perspectives – which examine Italian food in the United States, Australia and Israel – the book reveals the power of representations across historical, geographic, socio-economic, and cultural boundaries and asks if there is anything that makes Italy unique. An important contribution to our understanding of the enduring power of Italy, Italian culture and Italian food – both in Italy and beyond. Essential reading for students and scholars in food studies, Italian studies, media studies, and cultural studies.

Table of contents

• FC
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Editors’ Introduction: Presenting food, representing Italy Peter Naccarato, Zachary Nowak, and Elgin K. Eckert
• PART ONE (Re)presenting iconic Italy
• 1 And at last, the farmers win Massimo Montanari
• 2 Authenticity all’italiana: Food discourses, diasporas, and the limits of cuisine in contemporary Italy Aliza S. Wong
• 3 The Slow Food Movement and Facebook: The paradox of advocating slow living through fast technology Ginevra Adamoli
• PART TWO Representing Italy in literature and film
• 4 Clara Sereni’s Casalinghitudine: Recipes for political history Ernesto Livorni
• 5 Inspector Montalbano a tavola: Food in Andrea Camilleri’s police fiction Elgin K. Eckert
• 6 There’s a mobster in the kitchen: Cooking, eating, and complications of gender in The Godfather and Goodfellas Peter Naccarato
• 7 In cibo veritas: Food preparation and consumption in Özpetek’s “queer” films Elgin K. Eckert and Zachary Nowak
• PART THREE Marketing, packaging, and advertising Italy
• 8 Producing consumers: Gendering Italy through food advertisements Diana Garvin
• 9 “A kitchen with a view”: The modernization of gender roles in Italy through Barilla’s 1950s and 1960s advertising campaigns Antonella Valoroso
• 10 Semiotics of sauce: Representing Italian/American identity through pasta sauces Maryann Tebben
• PART FOUR Global representations of Italy
• 11 Italianità in America: The cultural politics of representing “authentic” Italian Cuisine in the U.S. Ken Albala
• 12 Leggo’s not-so-autentico: Invention and representation in twentieth century Italo-Australian foodways Rachel A. Ankeny and Tania Cammarano
• 13 Italian food in Israel: Representing an Imagined Mediterranean Nir Avieli
• 14 Afterword: Italy represented Peter Naccarato, Zachary Nowak, and Elgin K. Eckert
• Index