Italy, as we love it, is, among other things, the prosciutto, the parmesan, the aceto balsamico. Protected as Italian cultural objects not to be counterfeited, copied or produced elsewhere. But now Alberto Grandi, professor at the economics faculty of the University of Parma, shows that these traditions are actually quite young and locked in time warps with the past and the original globalization. The really real Parmesan is said to be in Wisconsin in the USA, where the first wave of Italian immigration made it
“The Wisconsin parmesan isn’t as good as the one we make here today, but it’s much closer to the original product, the one our ancestors knew.” While it was long forgotten in Emilia-Romagna, its territory of origin, Italian emigrants in the USA made it according to the old recipes. Its texture is fatter, the cheese is softer, its rind is black because, as in the past, it is treated with ash to preserve it. It was only after the Second World War that Parmesan was further developed in Italy into the crumbly hard cheese that it is sold and valued as today.
And since many Italians prefer to live in an ideal world and see real history as criticism, waves of excitement run high. Since an interview, the Grandi According to the Financial Times at the end of March, he has to explain and justify himself in the media.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini immediately launched an attack on Grandi, and Coldiretti, the Italian Farmers’ Confederation, released an angry statement accusing the professor of launching a “surreal attack on the iconic dishes of Italian cuisine” at the very moment since the government is applying to have it included in Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage.
The Italians are probably closer to their “invented” tradition (which nobody really wants to destroy) than to modernity and the future. Italy, once a country of innovation in the last 20th century, cultivates its myths, its “gastro-nationalism”. One forgets, for example, that Giulio Natta, the inventor of plastic, one of the most important products of modern times, was an Italian. Or that the forerunner of the PC came from Italy, namely the world‘s first freely programmable desktop calculator, the P101 from Olivetti. Similar to many in Germany, people are skeptical about genetic engineering or AI. Developments and applications are hindered and prohibited.
The return to supposedly old culinary traditions and the genesis of identity-establishing stories about Italian cuisine have their origins in the post-war years. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Italy experienced an incredible economic boom. Within a very short time, a poor house has become a prosperous country. The alternative for the people was: “You renounce your traditions, in return you get prosperity like you have never experienced before,” explains the professor. But the boom was followed by the crisis. In the 1970s, the social costs became visible and modernity was suddenly perceived as dangerous.
And now search Italians (as well as many Germans) a new tale of a happy country where life and food have always been decent. Although that is not the sole characteristic of the conservatives, according to Grandi.
In their skepticism about globalization and free markets, they meet with the left. They also have nostalgic ideas about food security and production conditions. … Even the great left-wing intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini was critical of modernity and looked for independent cultural traditions and values in rural society. “It was a very poor, violent world.”
Sure, the original Italian cuisine was a «cucina domestica», which can be translated (somewhat carelessly) as «home cooking». The characteristic dishes were created at home, on the home stove. But it is It is no coincidence that an Italian restaurant only got a Michelin star in 1985, in times of growing prosperity.
Italian cuisine is simple and needs little. «Refinement», on the other hand, is a French invention. “The tiramisu is characteristic of it,” he explains, “it’s a modern and typically local dish.” It was only with increasing prosperity that it became possible to use the relatively expensive mascarpone.
So we cultivate both in our prosperity – tradition and innovation. Not only in Italy. Bon appetit and “artificial” intelligence ….