W
henPellegrinoArtusi
publishedhiscookbookLa
Scienzain cucinae l’artedi
mangiarebene(Sciencein the
KitchenandtheArtof Eating
Well) in1891,Italyhadonly
beenunifiedpoliticallyfor 30 years.Hisaimwasto
unifythecountrygastronomicallybycollectingits
regionalrecipes.Hisreadershipwasurban,middle-
classandliterate,butevenashewrote– andfor
differentreasons– foodwasalsoonthemindsof
other Italians. Namely the peasants who, victims of
a nationwide agrarian crisis, were fleeing the country
to seek fortune across Europe and beyond. They
might as well have been from a different planet.
Between 1876 and 1914, about eight million
Italians sailed to “La Merica” – not so much a
geographical entity as a dream of a better life. It was
their hunger that shaped the popular image of Italian
food worldwide. Their wonder at the abundance they
found on reaching their destinations transpires from
their letters home. “Here everyone, from the richest
to the poorest, eats meat, bread and soup every day,”
wrote one new Venetian arrival in Argentina.
Regional and family ties and shared skills made
some emigrants stick together. As author Primo
Levi wrote, “Anywhere in the world, you’ll find a
Neapolitan making pizza and a man from Biella
building walls.” In Peron and Fremantle in Western
Australia, Sicilians and Pugliese established themselves
as lobster fishermen. Queensland received the
inhabitants of the village of Conzano in Piedmont,
who emigrated there to work as cane cutters in the
sugar plantations. Today menus at the functions
of the Piemonteis Association of
Queensland feature dishes such as
lengua con bagnet (calf’s tongue
with parsley sauce) and friciulin
To underscore their
newfound prosperity,
Italian communities in
the USA added extra
oomph to their dishes.
Hence spaghetti
with meatballs,
fettuccine Alfredo and
chicken parmesan.
dos (sweet semolina fritters) whose names are
incomprehensible to Italians from other regions.
They still “eat in dialect”.
Other emigrants adapted to local demand. People
from Barga in northern Tuscany monopolised the
fish-and-chips business in Western Scotland (families
who have since returned to the small town now stage
an annual “Pesce e patate” festival). In London, Italian
restaurateurs catered for the tastes of their British
clientele. The speciality of Isola Bella, established
in 1923, was suprême de poulard, while La Famiglia
offered “French cuisine with Italian names”.
Little Italies popped up everywhere from
Manhattan in New York City to Boca, the port
district of Buenos Aires, and, later, Lygon Street in
Melbourne. To the outsider these neighbourhoods
appeared homogeneous, but inside
they were babels of different dialects.
“What do we have in Little Italy
if not a number of villages?” asked
the migration historian Amy
Bernardy in 1911.
Through interaction at street
markets, food shops and eateries,
enclaves coalesced. At the table
diversity produced uniformity in
a culinary model based on P-words
universally identified with Italy:
pasta, pizza, parmesan, prosciutto.
Nottomentionpomodoroand
peperoncino,whichhadoriginated
intheAmericasanyway,proofofthefactthat
theevolutionoffoodidentityis nothingif not
a conversationbetweencultures.
Tounderscoretheirnewfoundprosperity,Italian
communitiesintheUSAaddedextraoomphto
theirdisheswithlocalhigh-proteiningredients.
Hencehybridrecipessuchas spaghettiwithmeatballs,
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ILLUSTRATIONS GETTY IMAGES.