Parma is quiet at night. The man sitting opposite me is paranoid someone will overhear our conversation. “They hate me here,” he explains in a hushed voice. He checks behind him, but the only other person in the osteria is a waitress who has had nothing to do since serving us our osso buco bottoncini. The aroma of roasted bone marrow wafts up from the table. Amy Winehouse’s cover of “Valerie” plays on a faraway radio.
“Can I badmouth them?” he asks. I tell him he can. After all, he hasn’t been invited here to expose corporate fraud. He has come to tell me the truth about parmesan cheese.
There’s a dark side to Italy’s often ludicrous attitude towards culinary purity. In 2019, the archbishop of Bologna, Matteo Zuppi, suggested adding some pork-free “welcome tortellini” to the menu at the city’s San Petronio feast. It was intended as a gesture of inclusion, inviting Muslim citizens to participate in the celebrations of the city’s patron saint. Far-right League party leader Matteo Salvini wasn’t on board. “They’re trying to erase our history, our culture,” he said.
https://www.tumblr.com/anneemay/712987153080205312/dude-literally-received-death-threats-from-italian
(sorry if this is the wrong com for this)
I work at an Italian restaurant and hate people being ethnic food purists cause traditional food is a myth and limits your toolkit as a cook. There is a progressive/reactionary element to cooking. Culinary history when looked at through a Marxist lense is incredibly enlightening. If you wanna do historical materialism what better material to begin with than food? It's the base and superstructure all in one, it describes availability of material, means of production, the organization and stratification of societies. If you want to have a solid fundamental grasp on history food is a fantastic baseline.