The Historical Italian Cooking Blog
April 3, 2023 11:14 AM Subscribe
Historical Italian Cooking is a bilingual (English and Italian) cooking blog focused on a wide range of historical Italian cooking, from ancient Rome to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with a side-trip to ancient Greece and a couple of relatively modern dishes. Many of the recipes are accompanied by videos on YouTube.
Personally I am fascinated by this medieval walnut bread recipe, which is flavored with walnuts, sugar, and a range of spices, but also multiple herbs and a bit of onion.
Personally I am fascinated by this medieval walnut bread recipe, which is flavored with walnuts, sugar, and a range of spices, but also multiple herbs and a bit of onion.
Oh, a post on food and Italy where I can drop this fantastic article about how most of the world famous Italian dishes are very recent innovations, and how authenticity is misused by the political right, and how this article is already causing scandal in Italy.
Great blog, thanks for posting!
posted by kmt at 1:40 PM on April 3, 2023 [9 favorites]
Great blog, thanks for posting!
posted by kmt at 1:40 PM on April 3, 2023 [9 favorites]
kmt, the interviewed Italian food historian is wrily aware about the rucus his clarifications about the mythification that has gone into creating the modern fortunes of Italian foods and recipes were going to cause, he's published a couple of books about it and has been teaching as a Hobsbawmian food history & economics professor for quite a while now. The interview is fortunately pretty well done, definitely worth reading.
The real history of the carbonara (the interview only mentions the first recorded recipe), its actual US-Army-flavoured origin story, has been pretty well documented by now (and been mentioned here previously).
It's always fascinating to see how brazenly the invention of history attempts to compete with the actual historical record...
posted by progosk at 3:31 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
The real history of the carbonara (the interview only mentions the first recorded recipe), its actual US-Army-flavoured origin story, has been pretty well documented by now (and been mentioned here previously).
It's always fascinating to see how brazenly the invention of history attempts to compete with the actual historical record...
posted by progosk at 3:31 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
Oh I just read that whole old carbonara thread, favorited several > 10 yo comments, it’s 10pm and damn it I’m now super hungry!
posted by WaterAndPixels at 6:15 PM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by WaterAndPixels at 6:15 PM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I just wanted to say that this is super interesting and will probably lead me to make some sort of disgusting leek recipe with sugar (we cannot understand the medieval mind). Thanks!
posted by kingdead at 4:56 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by kingdead at 4:56 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I know one fun fact I usually bring up on occasions like this: Ciabatta was invented in 1982!
posted by Harald74 at 5:56 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Harald74 at 5:56 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
What an amazing blog! It's a good thing that I have a couple of days of holidays starting tomorrow.
About the whole authenticity thing: I am split on this issue. On one hand, it has obviously become a joke. On the other, the Italians have managed to save their food culture to a much greater extent than for instance France has, very much because of the authenticity police. And you can get all the innovative, original food you want in Italy.
Specifically about pizza because Grandi mentions that it was exotic to his dad in the 1970s: one of my best food memories is a slice of cold pizza, eaten at a bar somewhere in Tuscany in 1972. We were on an "adventure", a road trip through Europe, mostly Italy, after my stepdad was fired from his job in Germany. And as usual, the food was scarce. But that day, my brother and I successfully screamed until we stopped at this primitive roadside bar and got the pizza slices. I have never been able to reproduce the seasoning of the sauce on that pizza, which was heavenly. Maybe I need to be more hungry. Anyway, it sort of undermines Grandi's otherwise very persuasive argument.
On the other hand, I absolutely remember the inventions of tiramisu and ciabatta. (One of my very best friends was an Italian cook).
posted by mumimor at 3:44 AM on April 5, 2023
About the whole authenticity thing: I am split on this issue. On one hand, it has obviously become a joke. On the other, the Italians have managed to save their food culture to a much greater extent than for instance France has, very much because of the authenticity police. And you can get all the innovative, original food you want in Italy.
Specifically about pizza because Grandi mentions that it was exotic to his dad in the 1970s: one of my best food memories is a slice of cold pizza, eaten at a bar somewhere in Tuscany in 1972. We were on an "adventure", a road trip through Europe, mostly Italy, after my stepdad was fired from his job in Germany. And as usual, the food was scarce. But that day, my brother and I successfully screamed until we stopped at this primitive roadside bar and got the pizza slices. I have never been able to reproduce the seasoning of the sauce on that pizza, which was heavenly. Maybe I need to be more hungry. Anyway, it sort of undermines Grandi's otherwise very persuasive argument.
On the other hand, I absolutely remember the inventions of tiramisu and ciabatta. (One of my very best friends was an Italian cook).
posted by mumimor at 3:44 AM on April 5, 2023
My mom taught a LLM program at the University of Bologna twice in an exchange program, for a semester each time.
One of the friends she made was a university professor (not a law prof, afaik -- history or pol sci, but friends with the law faculty) who was your classic Italian lefty academic and also a world-class gastronome, both in very intense but endearing ways.
His mantra, when it came to various extra-national interpretations was "it's good, but it's not Italian." Applied equally to red tablecloth Amero-italian, attempts to do regional cuisine 'correctly' in a fine dining mode as in the 80s and 90s and since, and more freewheeling farm to table hybrid stuff in the current mold.
The thing is, if you actually go to Italy the intensive regional differences get boring. You have to go to a Roman restaurant in Bologna to get Roman food, and likewise the neighboring regions (or get on the train); and everyone really does do the local food mostly the same way, so that gets old fast (not days, but easily in weeks).
That said, if you have to be stuck in one place in Italy, you want it to be Emilia-Romangna for eating purposes. (And probably thinking purposes, too.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:34 PM on April 16, 2023
One of the friends she made was a university professor (not a law prof, afaik -- history or pol sci, but friends with the law faculty) who was your classic Italian lefty academic and also a world-class gastronome, both in very intense but endearing ways.
His mantra, when it came to various extra-national interpretations was "it's good, but it's not Italian." Applied equally to red tablecloth Amero-italian, attempts to do regional cuisine 'correctly' in a fine dining mode as in the 80s and 90s and since, and more freewheeling farm to table hybrid stuff in the current mold.
The thing is, if you actually go to Italy the intensive regional differences get boring. You have to go to a Roman restaurant in Bologna to get Roman food, and likewise the neighboring regions (or get on the train); and everyone really does do the local food mostly the same way, so that gets old fast (not days, but easily in weeks).
That said, if you have to be stuck in one place in Italy, you want it to be Emilia-Romangna for eating purposes. (And probably thinking purposes, too.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:34 PM on April 16, 2023
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posted by Oyéah at 1:12 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]