I fucking loved this recent bit in the Financial Times (paywalled, soz) about an Italian communist professor throwing shade on Italian food mythology. Long story short, he says it’s pretty much all bullshit. Until the 1950s most Italians starved every day and whatever nutrients they found during the course of the day they’d push straight into their feeding holes.
One fave bit was his take one parmesan cheese. The only true parmesan is American.
Parmesan, Grandi says, is remarkably ancient, around a millennium old. But before the 1960s, wheels of parmesan cheese weighed only about 10kg (as opposed to the hefty 40kg wheels we know today) and were encased in a thick black crust. Its texture was fatter and softer than it is nowadays. “Some even say that this cheese, as a sign of quality, had to squeeze out a drop of milk when pressed,” Grandi says. “Its exact modern-day match is Wisconsin parmesan.” He believes that early 20th-century Italian immigrants, probably from the Po’ region north of Parma, started producing it in Wisconsin and, unlike the cheesemakers back in Parma, their recipe never evolved. So while Parmigiano in Italy became over the years a fair-crusted, hard cheese produced in giant wheels, Wisconsin parmesan stayed true to the original.
Whoa. I believe it. I read a book once called "Albion's Seed," which postulated that the Appalachian dialect preserved Elizabethan speech patterns while the Mother Country moved on. Likewise, some Americans today believe that most countries beyond these shores are a poverty-stricken and benighted wilderness, based upon the tales of their impoverished and desperate ancestors, or relatives returning from the devastated Europe and Japan of 1945. Like the cheese, it's stuff frozen in time.
Probably from my hometown of Plymouth, Wisconsin! (cheese capital of the world) about 7 cheese factories in a town of 10,000 people and a few more just outside of town. You can buy Sartori cheese at the Coles Neighborhood stores and Costco.
Bah! What's next? The yanks claiming that their Budweiser is the true beer?
But seriously, interesting idea. Is it partially that nobody would seriously give the cheese time to age, given how hungry they were? Not a bad thought- preservation would have been with the winter in mind, rather than to develop a fine, 24-month-old Parmigianino Reggiano. But this assumes that food scarcity is not just the norm, but the rule. There may have been many times where enough wealth existed for experimentation with preserving foods over a longer period. After all, somebody decided that wine vintages should be a thing.
Being an communist in Italy at the mo is pretty frelling ballsy given the right wing fascists in charge who seem to running with the usual bullshit culture war stuff but at the moment over food "ROME, March 28 (Reuters) - Italy's government on Tuesday approved a bill banning the use of laboratory-produced food and animal feed as it aims to safeguard the country's agri-food heritage" "Laboratory products in our opinion do not guarantee quality, well-being and the protection of our culture, our tradition," said Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, a senior member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy party.
Whoa. I believe it. I read a book once called "Albion's Seed," which postulated that the Appalachian dialect preserved Elizabethan speech patterns while the Mother Country moved on. Likewise, some Americans today believe that most countries beyond these shores are a poverty-stricken and benighted wilderness, based upon the tales of their impoverished and desperate ancestors, or relatives returning from the devastated Europe and Japan of 1945. Like the cheese, it's stuff frozen in time.
Probably from my hometown of Plymouth, Wisconsin! (cheese capital of the world) about 7 cheese factories in a town of 10,000 people and a few more just outside of town. You can buy Sartori cheese at the Coles Neighborhood stores and Costco.
Bah! What's next? The yanks claiming that their Budweiser is the true beer?
But seriously, interesting idea. Is it partially that nobody would seriously give the cheese time to age, given how hungry they were? Not a bad thought- preservation would have been with the winter in mind, rather than to develop a fine, 24-month-old Parmigianino Reggiano. But this assumes that food scarcity is not just the norm, but the rule. There may have been many times where enough wealth existed for experimentation with preserving foods over a longer period. After all, somebody decided that wine vintages should be a thing.
Being an communist in Italy at the mo is pretty frelling ballsy given the right wing fascists in charge who seem to running with the usual bullshit culture war stuff but at the moment over food "ROME, March 28 (Reuters) - Italy's government on Tuesday approved a bill banning the use of laboratory-produced food and animal feed as it aims to safeguard the country's agri-food heritage" "Laboratory products in our opinion do not guarantee quality, well-being and the protection of our culture, our tradition," said Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, a senior member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy party.