Italian Food and Culture: An Introduction

Week 1: Introduction to Italian Food and Culture

• Food is a learned, shared, cumulative, dynamic, and diverse cultural experience reflecting societal values and history.
• Italy is viewed as an ideal for food and eating culture, emphasizing fresh ingredients, communal meals, and culinary traditions.
• Nostalgia surrounding Italian food often is in contrast with historical realities of food scarcity and adaptation over time.
• Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) was a French gastronome whose work influenced modern food philosophy.
• Eating is both a sensory and intellectual experience, involving not just sustenance but also pleasure and culture.
• Food shapes identity: “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
• Culinary innovation is significant to human culture: "The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity than the discovery of a new star.”
• Hospitality and food are deeply intertwined: "To invite a person to your house is to take charge of their happiness.”
• Helen Keller emphasized the importance of engaging all senses.
• Appreciating color, form, and presentation, including that of food is a form of visual appreciation.
• Visual aesthetics, smell, and texture play a role in food culture.
• Taste is primarily smell.
• The human tongue only detects five basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami).
• The olfactory system provides most of what is perceived as "flavor."
• Humans prefer complex aromas like spices, herbs, and fermented foods, unlike animals that rely on pheromones.
• Many spices have antimicrobial properties, historically used for food preservation.
• Spices add layers of flavor and reflect regional culinary traditions.
• Smell has a direct connection to memory, making food deeply nostalgic.
• An example of this is Proust's madeleine moment: taste and smell trigger powerful recollections.
• Italian food is often depicted as simple, peasant-based, and rooted in tradition.
• Historically, peasants ate poorly, with limited variety and resources, and many "classic Italian” dishes were once luxuries.
• Modern Italian cuisine reflects centuries of adaptation, trade, and globalization.
• The image of rustic Italian food often ignores its urban and aristocratic influences, although some regional dishes were historically associated with wealthier classes (e.g., bistecca alla fiorentina).
• "Mistero Buffo" uses satire to critique class struggles and capitalism in the context of food access.
• Historically, a large stomach was once associated with wealth and prosperity.
• Post-WWII Italy saw a shift toward abundance, moving away from past food insecurity.
• Traditional diets are often reconstructed versions of peasant food.
• Today's Italian food culture embraces regional pride, fresh ingredients, and Mediterranean diet principles.
• Certain smells instantly transport people to childhood memories.
• The visual appeal of food affects taste perception.
• Crunchy foods enhance enjoyment, and smooth, creamy foods may evoke comfort.

Week 2: Food as Nature & Culture

• Food originates from natural resources, it is transformed through cultural practices.
• Cooking, preservation, and dining rituals create cultural significance around food.
• Agriculture and cooking shaped human civilization and societal structures.
• The evolution of taste reflects social and economic factors, including trade and technology.
• Religious dietary laws also influenced food traditions (e.g., Catholic fasting, Kosher laws).
• The Kikonians and Lotus-Eaters in The Odyssey represent different relationships with food.
• Food as a loss of identity and memory is symbolized by eating, which can either sustain or transform an individual's sense of self.
• The shift from hunting to agriculture marked civilization, and cooking food made it more than sustenance—it became a social activity.
• Food was controlled by the elite in medieval societies, with scarcity and abundance reflecting class structure.
• The nobility had access to refined cooking and luxury ingredients, while peasants had limited diets.
• The Greeks raid the Kikonians' land, consume their food, and suffer the consequences.
• Eating the lotus makes men forget their homeland, highlighting food's power to alter human will and identity.
• Food is not just sustenance but a cultural and psychological force.
• The way people eat and what they eat can determine social and individual identity.
• The transformation of natural food through cooking gives it identity.
• Culinary traditions shape civilizations and reflect power structures.
• Literature and myth often use food as a symbol for memory, transformation, and power.

Week 3: The Invention of Cuisine

• Landowners and nobility controlled food production in feudal societies.
• Peasants had a monotonous diet, consisting mostly of grains (barley, rye, and oats), vegetables, and legumes.
• Meat, sugar, and exotic spices symbolized wealth, often reserved for aristocrats.
• While lower classes relied on salted meats and preserved fish, hunting was a privilege of the nobility.
• Northern Italy is known for butter-based cooking, polenta, rice, and dairy-heavy dishes, while Central Italy is known for olive oil, pasta, bread, and game meats.
• Southern Italy is known for tomato-based sauces, seafood, spices, and durum wheat pasta.
• Deuteronomy 14 outlines Kosher dietary rules, influencing Jewish-Italian cuisine, while Catholicism introduced fasting periods (Lent) and feast traditions, shaping Italian meal structures.
• Liber de Coquina (Southern Italy) focuses on vegetables, fish, and elaborate spices, influenced by Arab and Norman culinary practices, while Libro de la Cocina (Tuscany) has more rustic recipes, emphasizing grains, meats, and simple stews.
• The idea of a national cuisine emerged through shared culinary texts and market exchanges.
• Food became an indicator of social status and identity, and the urban elite controlled trade and markets, influencing which foods were considered refined.
• Cuisine was shaped by social hierarchy, with food access reflecting economic and political power.
• Regional differences in cuisine developed based on geography, trade, and cultural influences.
• Medieval cookbooks illustrate the distinction between aristocratic dining and peasant sustenance, and religious traditions played a significant role in defining Italian food customs.

Week 4: Are We What We Eat?

• Cuisine reflects regional history, social class, and migration patterns, and Italian food evolved through adaptation to available ingredients and external influences.
• Italian immigrants adapted recipes due to ingredient availability, and Italian-American food diverged from traditional Italian cuisine, incorporating new flavors and cooking methods.
• An dish popular in the U.S. is spaghetti and meatballs, which is not a traditional pairing in Italy.
• Nobility and upper classes had access to exotic ingredients and refined dishes, while peasants relied on bread, legumes, and garden vegetables.
• Some foods, such as pasta, polenta, and rice, became staples in different regions based on economic and agricultural factors.
• Italian-American cuisine emerged from necessity, adaptation, and cultural memory.
• Certain dishes, such as chicken parmesan and garlic bread, evolved from Italian roots but became uniquely American.
• First-generation immigrants tried to preserve culinary traditions, and later generations often blended Italian and American flavors.
• Supermarkets and industrial food production further changed traditional Italian foodways in the U.S.
• Scego, an Italian writer of Somali descent, explores cultural duality through food, and highlights how food becomes a symbol of belonging and exclusion.
• Italian cuisine is often perceived as static and “pure”, but it has been shaped by centuries of trade and migration.
• The idea of "authentic” Italian food is a modern construct, often at odds with historical reality.
• Nobles consumed imported spices, fine meats, and elaborate dishes.
• Peasants relied on seasonal vegetables, grains, and foraged foods.
• Traditional “peasant foods” (such as polenta, beans, and simple pasta dishes) have been rebranded as authentic Italian cuisine in the modern era, reflecting a nostalgia-driven reinterpretation of historical eating habits.
• Historically, women were responsible for household cooking, while professional chefs were predominantly male.
• The image of the Italian mother cooking for her family is a key cultural stereotype, but real kitchen labor was often demanding and unrecognized. While gendered expectations about cooking persist, more women have entered the professional culinary world, and celebrity chefs have helped elevate traditional Italian home cooking to global recognition.
• Italian cuisine is shaped by migration, adaptation, and class structures, and the idea of "authentic” Italian food is often a modern reinterpretation.
• Food reflects social class, gender roles, and economic history while also rebranding traditional peasant foods rebranding them as symbols of Italian culinary heritage.

Week 5: Italian Food in Literature & Social Structures

• Food in literature represents power, sacrifice, love, and social class, notably The Decameron uses food to explore human nature, morality, and economic conditions.
• Access to meat, spices, and refined dishes signified wealth and nobility; peasants relied on grains, vegetables, and foraged foods.
• The access to food was dictated by social mobility in medieval and Renaissance Italy was often reflected in food availability
• Cisti, a humble baker, possesses a rare and fine wine that noblemen desire, but rather than being servile, he asserts his dignity by controlling how and to whom he serves the wine.
• The story of Cisti critiques social hierarchy and intelligence as a form of wealth, and food (wine) symbolizes exclusivity and knowledge, ultimately challenging the idea that nobility automatically deserves the best resources.
• A noblewoman unknowingly eats the heart of her lover, served to her by a vengeful husband, in light of the themes of Betrayal & Cruelty.
• Food becomes an instrument of power, revenge, and deception, where the act of eating is intimate yet horrifying, emphasizing themes of betrayal and manipulation.
• A once-wealthy nobleman, reduced to poverty, kills his last prized falcon to serve an unknowing guest (his love interest, Monna Giovanna), who later realizes his sacrifice and agrees to marry him.
• The sacrifice is a symbol of devotion, and highlights chivalric values and economic downfall.
• The irony of the thing Monna Giovanna wanted (the falcon), was unintentionally consumed.
• Fasting was seen as a way to achieve spiritual purity, while gluttony was condemned as a sin, but controlled eating (Eucharist) was holy.
• In particular, women engaged in extreme fasting as a form of devotion and control over their lives, and fasting = piety & self-denial, reinforcing female spirituality.
• Some saintly women survived only on the Eucharist, emphasizing religious sacrifice, but women's food habits were policed, reflecting broader gender expectations.
• Merchants & urban elites shaped food trade and availability, and cities controlled markets, food pricing, and access to luxury goods.
• The nobility dictated food fashion (e.g., use of sugar, spices, and elaborate meals).
• The poor often ate what was discarded or least expensive, reinforcing social stratification.
• Medieval food customs reinforced economic and class divisions, and religious fasting played a critical role in shaping attitudes toward food and gender roles.
• The concept of food, devotion, betrayal, or control is deeply embedded in Italian history and literature.

Week 6: Food in the Middle Ages & Renaissance

• Medieval diets were shaped by humoral theory (balance of bodily fluids dictated by diet).
• Renaissance cuisine introduced refined cooking, elaborate banquets, and increased trade influence.
• Medieval health was based on balancing the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile).
• The Salerno Medical School was a major source of medieval dietary knowledge
• Fasting and feasting structured much of daily life; Lent restricted meat, dairy, and eggs, leading to creative recipes using fish, nuts, and alternative fats.
• The most important medieval medical school was located in Salerno, which blended Greek, Roman, Arab, and Jewish medical traditions, and produced dietary guidelines for health (Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum).
• Hot & Dry (Choleric) diets involved spices, wine, and roasted meats; Cold & Wet (Phlegmatic) diets involved fish, dairy, and melons; Hot & Wet (Sanguine) diets involved fruits, sweets, and honey; and Cold & Dry (Melancholic) diets involved lentils, beans, and black bread.
• Medieval women often fasted to demonstrate piety and control over their bodies, and saints were known to survive solely on the Eucharist, reinforcing the spiritual power of food denial.
• Pope Gregory the Great identified gluttony as a root sin, defining excessive eating in terms of: eating before meal time, consuming food purely for pleasure, and overindulging in elaborate, spiced, or rich foods.
• Climate change led to torrential rains, crop failures, and food shortages, which in turn increased grain prices, malnutrition and higher mortality rates, ultimately causing social unrest as food became a symbol of power and privilege.
• Greater emphasis was put on presentation, luxury, and imported ingredients where spices like saffron, cinnamon, and nutmeg were highly prized. During the Renaissance, pasta dishes, sugar-based confections, and elaborate roasted meats became status symbols.
• Renaissance banquets include multi-course meals with theatrical presentations, featuring food sculptures, sugar figurines, and elaborate table settings.
• Bartolomeo Scappi, as personal chef to Pope Pius V and author of Opera dell'arte del cucinare (1570), introduced detailed recipe documentation, advanced kitchen tools, and refined cooking techniques.
• Carnival, which is celebrated before Lent, is full of excessive eating, drinking, and festivities where foods such as castagnole (fried dough balls) and frappe (sweet fried pastries) were common; however it's contrasted by Lenten Restrictions, where strict dietary laws banned meat, dairy, and eggs, led to creative culinary adaptations using fish, nuts, and alternative fats.
• Medieval diets were rooted in health beliefs, while Renaissance cuisine embraced refinement and luxury.
• Religious fasting and feasting shaped daily food habits.
• The Renaissance banquet culture emphasized culinary artistry and entertainment.
• Food scarcity, such as during the Great Famine, shaped social and political unrest.