Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
Ranieri, Massimo
b. 3 May 1951, Pallonetto, Naples
Popular music artist and composer
The wide range of Ranieri’s creative activities reveals a progressive artist who has sought
to transcend the limitations of mainstream popular music. Born Giovanni Calone, he
assumed his stage name in tribute to Prince Rainier of Monaco, making his debut at the
New York Academy at the age of thirteen. In 1967 his performance of ‘Pietà per chi ti
ama’ (Mercy On He Who Loves You) brought victory in Cantagiro and provided Ranieri
with his first entry in the hit parade. There followed eight years of consistent success with
numerous number one hits. In 1971, Ranieri met Leonard Bernstein and planned an
album of Neapolitan songs with the London Symphony Orchestra. His activities in this
area resulted in the award of a gold disc for O surdato ‘nnamurato (The Soldier in Love)
in 1972. From the late 1970s, Ranieri succeeded in pursuing a parallel career as an actor,
working extensively in film and theatre throughout Europe, though he also found the time
to compete in, and win, the Sanremo Festival of 1988.
JOHN KERSEY
rap music
Although house, ska, hip hop and raggamuffin had already appeared as musical styles in
Italy during the 1980s, rap music only surfaced in a distinctive way in the early 1990s. It
then quickly exploded into a major phenomenon. Pop singer Javanotti (Lorenzo
Cherubini) has often claimed to have been the first to introduce rap to Italy, but this
primacy has always been strongly contested by more militant Italian rappers, many of
whom prefer to locate the first signs of truly Italian rap in the rough-edged music of the
Onda Rossa Posse broadcast by the Roman underground radio station Radio Onda Rossa
in the summer of 1990. Others suggest that the real genesis of Italian rap lay in the Ghetto
Blaster evenings at Bologna’s occupied drop-in centre, Isola del Kantiere, between 1988
and 1990, when it was forcibly closed down by the authorities.
Inevitably modelled on American examples in the first instance, Italian rap quickly
took on very distinctive characteristics. The first—and in direct contrast to its earlier
manifestations in the mid-1980s, when Italians had tried to sing in English—was a strong
tendency to manifest a resolutely local identification, using not only regional Italian but
often even more restricted dialects in order to communicate local issues and concerns. Far
from being a sign of provincialism, this localization manifested a desire both to remain
close to the grassroots of daily life and to distance itself from official homogenized
Italian culture. The second and often aligned characteristic of much Italian rap has been
the close connection of many of the Italian groups—in particular the Italian ‘posses’, who
have been practitioners of the so-called ‘combat rap’—with the centri sociali (drop-in
Entries A–Z 701
centres often occupied illegally) of the big cities of Naples, Rome, Milan, Turin and
Bologna. This close association with marginalized youth and the socially disaffected
prompted rap to naturally assume the function of social protest and opposition to the
status quo, thus reintroducing a political dimension into popular music which, much in
evidence in the 1970s, had almost completely disappeared during the hedonistic 1980s.
This commitment to oppositional culture was a strong characteristic of most of the well-
known groups including the Sud Sound System, Isola Posse All Stars, Onda Rosse Posse
(Posse Red Wave) and 99 Posse and, significantly, when Gabriele Salvatores attempted a
return to more politically committed film-making in 1993 with Sud, the soundtrack
bristled with rap, from Assalti Frontali (Frontal Assault) and 99 Posse to Papa Ricky
from the Isola Posse All Stars.
In the late 1990s, the aggressive tone of rap has mellowed somewhat with some of the
posses disbanding and others choosing to join more mainstream performance and
distribution circuits. However rap, especially in the more commercial form of rap leggera
or light rap, remains extremely popular and continues to sell well, with Javanotti’s last
album L’Albero (the Tree) having already exceeded 600,000 copies.
Further reading
Mitchell, T. (1996) ‘Questions of Style: The Italian Posses and their Social Contexts’, Popular
Music and Social Identity, New York: Leicester University Press (an extensive discussion of
Italian rap and its social and political context).
Pacoda, P. (1996) Potere alla parola. Antologia del rap italiano (Power to the Word: An
Anthology of Italian Rap), Milan: Feltrinelli (a number of informative essays, followed by a
representative anthology of texts by all the major rappers, each with its own introduction).
GINO MOLITERNO
Rasy, Elisabetta
b. 1947, Rome
Novelist and essayist
Roman by birth, Rasy spent much of her childhood in Naples before returning to live and
work in her native city. She is a writer of both fiction and criticism, and has written some
key feminist works, among them the long essay La lingua della nutrice (The Nurturing
Tongue) (1978), a text praised by Julia Kristeva for its innovative theoretical prose, Le
donne e la letteratura (Women and Literature) (1988) and Ritratti di Signora (Portraits of
a Lady) (1995), which examines the lives and works of three other female writers, Grazia
Deledda, Ada Negri and Matilde Serao. Rasy has been a key figure in theorizing
women’s writing and analysing major shifts in Italian feminist thinking. Her first novel,
La prima estasi (The First Ecstasy), was published by Mondadori in 1985, followed by
L’altra amante (The Other Lover) (1990). She has also written an autobiography,
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 702
Posillipo (1997), as well as art criticism, essays and stories which have appeared in many
periodicals.
BERNADETTE LUCIANO
Rea, Domenico
b. 8 September 1921, Nocera Inferiore, Naples
Novelist, poet and short story writer
Generally regarded as a neorealist writer, Rea consistently used the colourful world of
Naples as the backdrop for his novels and his numerous short stories. His works avoid
stereotypical representations of the poor in order to more convincingly portray the
hardships and deprivations of provincial life. Almost completely self-taught, Rea’s own
works reveal the influence of Russian and American authors, whose books he read
widely. His short stories, which have generally been more critically acclaimed than his
novels, are collected in Spaccanapoli (The Spaccanapoli Quarter) (1947), Gesù, fate luce
(Jesus, Shed Your Light), which won the Viareggio prize in 1951, and Quel che vide
Cummeo (What Cummeo Saw) (1955), amongst others. Una vampata di rossore (A
Blush of Shame) (1959) is widely regarded as his most accomplished novel, while Due
Napoli (Two Naples) is a critical work which outlines the motivations behind his
narrative style. Rea has also published poetry and a Diario napoletano (Neapolitan
Diary) (1971), which includes essays on his native city.
LAURA A. SALSINI
realism
Realism, in a variety of forms, was the dominant trend in immediate postwar Italian art.
However, adopted and constrained by the Communist Party (see PCI), it soon became a
backwater as artists turned away from didactic messages towards abstraction and only re-
emerged in the return to figuration of the 1970s.
Realism and social realism in postwar Italian art need to be clearly distinguished from
earlier forms of these trends. Realism had been a mid-nineteenth century French
movement associated with Courbet, who rebelled against the fantasies and emotionalism
of the Romantic movement. Courbet’s realism was a style which sought to depict things
as they ‘really were’, that is, painted directly from life without exaggeration or
embellishment. It also came to have a political aspect in that, for the first time, labourers
and peasants were considered worthy subjects for large-scale canvasses.
In Courbet’s day, realism was new and radical but inevitably over the next century it
became part of establishment art. Avantgarde art became increasingly abstract, and
Entries A–Z 703
realism came to be considered passé. In fact, many modern movements measured their
own worth by the extent to which they actively departed from realism.
In the 1930s there arose fierce argument about what constituted revolutionary art. The
German expressionists, the dadaists and the surrealists all had programmes of social
renewal, and argued that a new and experimental avantgarde style could best convey this
message. The Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, on the other hand, argued that because
realist art was true to life and without artifice, it could be immediately understood and
read by an uneducated audience. Stalin agreed with him, and the style of flat, linear,
illustrative art that resulted came to be known as social (or sometimes socialist) realism,
because it combined truth in representing objects with political truth in representing the
class struggle. In Germany, Hitler also favoured simple, graphic, narrative art and
despised all the -isms of avantgarde art, which he regarded as perversions. All agreed on
the broad idea that art is a vehicle for ideas, and a control over the production of art
means some control over the political agenda.
In Fascist Italy, however, there was less policing of artistic styles. Official architecture
and sculpture was monumental and classicist in a dry, modernist way, but Mussolini
expressed no desire to censor the styles of individuals. Hence Il Corrente (The Current),
an artists’ movement formed in 1939, included both formalists and realists, who were
united more by opposition to Fascist politics than by stylistic concerns. The solidarity
among artists increased during the last years of the Second World War, when many
participated together in the Resistance. However, as with the democratic political parties,
often all they had in common was their opposition to Fascism, so it was not surprising
that their unity soon crumbled.
Some artists, such as the Forma (Form) group, quickly declared themselves for
abstract art, arguing that it was possible to be both formalist and Marxist. Even among
those who supported realism, there was a considerable range of opinion. The most
orthodox communist view was put forward by writer Antonello Trombadori, who
favoured a flat, pictorial style with aesthetic qualities clearly subordinate to the
expression of the political message. Trombadori praised the didactic nature of Guttuso’s
Gott mit uns (God With Us), from 1945, which depicted a historical episode of German
brutality, but was unable to see how more personal or abstract art could also express
positive political values. De Micheli, on the other hand, spoke out against veristic or
naturalistic realism, which he saw leading to the error of social realism. In their manifesto
Oltre guernica (Beyond Guernica) from 1946, Morlotti and Vedova made the same
claim, suggesting that realism was a shared state of mind rather than a style, which shows
just how broad the Italian sense of realism could be. Indeed, elsewhere the term
‘figurative’ (dealing with the recognizable shape of objects) would be used, as it allowed
for a lesser or greater degree of abstraction. Guttuso himself adopted a neo-cubist style.
Thus when Birolli, Morlotti, Vedova, Santomaso, Corpora and Guttuso came together in
1947 in the Fronte nuovo delle arti (New Front of the Arts), they could speak of
themselves as representing a realismo nuovo or new realism, even though collectively
they ran the gamut of figurative styles.
In 1948, the ideal of a unity between political action and art was shattered when
Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti condemned modernist art, including the work
of Forma and the Fronte, as rubbish, in terms remarkably similar to those which had been
used by Hitler fifteen years earlier. At the same time, growing tension between America
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 704
and USSR dashed hopes of a rapprochement between liberalism and socialism. This
presented a crisis for the realist tendency. There were artists who decided they were
simply not interested in delivering any sort of message, preferring to pursue the formal
and technical aspects of their craft. Others came to see that abstraction was the language
of the international avantgarde and that by persevering with representation they would be
left out in the cold. Writer Elio Vittorini argued that whatever an artist’s commitment to
political and social progress, there should be no obligation to ‘suonare il piffero’ (play the
pipe) for the revolution by adopting any particular style.
Nevertheless, realism became the official style of the Communist Party and Guttuso its
figurehead, adopting a popular, narrative style exemplified in his Occupazione della terra
incolte in Sicilia (Occupation of Uncultivated Land in Sicily) (1950). However, Guttuso’s
followers were described by Vittorini as minor dilettantes, and the whole experience was
seen as a mere revival. In 1956, Realismo, the official journal of the movement, closed
down just as the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and the revolution finally lost its gloss.
Later, in the 1960s, Guttuso himself would say that both abstract art and art which sought
to be mistaken for reality were a product of the imagination, and therefore not truly
realist. True realism should honestly bear the marks of what it is: a painting, a sculpture,
a work of art.
Further reading
De Micheli, M. (1989) ‘Realism and the Post-war Debate’, in E. Braun (ed.), Italian Art in the 20th
Century, Munich: Prestel-Verlag.
MAX STAPLES
Red Brigades
The Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) were the largest, longest-lived and most damaging of
the left-wing groups which used clandestine political violence as a’revolutionary’
political strategy in the 1970s and early 1980s. Between their first appearance in 1970
and their last murder in 1988, the Red Brigades attracted some 450 members and carried
out more than 500 attacks on people and property. Their attacks were mostly
concentrated in the four cities of Milan, Turin, Genoa and Rome, and included 81
murders, 75 woundings and 17 kidnappings.
The BR signature was invented in Milan in an extreme left group led by Curcio, Cagol
and Franceschini. Embarking on ‘armed struggle’ for socialism, they argued, could be
justified on several grounds. The Vietcong had shown how effective clandestine violence
by small groups could be against larger forces; the PCI was irremediably ‘reformist’ and
had betrayed the radical inheritance of the Resistance; the mass protests of the Hot
Autumn showed that the working class was ready for revolutionary change; and the
incapacity of the extraparliamentary Left to resist the increasing neo-fascist violence
demonstrated the need for armed defence of working-class interests.
Entries A–Z 705
Between 1970 and 1975, the BR restricted themselves to the intimidation of factory
staff and kidnappings of symbolic ‘class enemies’, designed to publicize the group’s
revolutionary commitment and show that violence could achieve what non-violent protest
under political party or trade union direction could not. Few were convinced. Shunned as
‘provocateurs’ by the Left, unable to attract recruits or prevent its leaders’ arrests, the BR
all but disappeared. After 1975, however, new enthusiasts for violence emerged from the
ruins of the extraparliamentary Left (see Autonomia). The BR, identified in the acts and
anathemas of their early members on trial in Turin between 1976 and 1978, attracted new
nuclei of support across central and north Italy. The problems of welding these dispersed
groups into an effective political force were met by raising the level of violence and the
status of its targets, a strategy designed to display an ability to attack the ‘heart of the
state’ and attract members from other, less ambitious armed groups. 1976 saw the first
deliberate BR murder, inaugurating attacks on politicians, journalists, magistrates, police
and factory personnel which culminated in the fifty-five-day kidnapping and eventual
murder of the prime minister and DC leader, Aldo Moro, in 1978. However, every
serious attack provoked internal disputes over its political importance, followed by
defections. In 1980 the confession of a disillusioned BR activist, Patrizio Peci, led to
widespread arrests and encouraged other members, many by now convinced that violence
could be neither effective nor popular, to follow his example (see pentiti). Thereafter the
rapidly declining membership battled for exclusive rights to the BR’s ‘revolutionary
inheritance’, publicly disowned by the group’s founders, but promoting their claims by
sporadic murders until 1988.
See also: Curcio; terrorism
Further reading
Catanzaro, R. (ed.) (1991) The Red Brigades and Leftwing Terrorism in Italy, London: Pinter
Publishers.
Wagner Pacifici, R.E. (1986) The Moro Morality Play: Terrorism as Social Drama, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
DAVID MOSS
referenda
The Italian Republic owes its very existence to the referendum of 2 June 1946, which
saw republicans triumph over monarchists by the narrow margin of 54 to 46 per cent. The
Constituent Assembly, elected at the same time, was sufficiently impressed by the
plebiscitary mechanism to include the right to initiate referenda in the constitution of
1948. However, Italians cannot call a referendum to make a law; a ‘yes’ vote can only
serve to abrogate existing legislation. In order to achieve this objective, a number of
obstacles have to be overcome. The referendum’s sponsors must assemble 500,000
registered voters’ signatures on a petition, or win the support of five regional councils.
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 706
The referendum proposal is then scrutinized by the Court of Cassation (and ultimately the
Constitutional Court), which must rule on its legality. Once the approval of the courts
has been secured, a date is set, but if this falls after a dissolution of parliament has been
called, the referendum must wait until after a new legislature has been sworn in and
another government formed. Assuming all the necessary conditions have been met, at
least 50 per cent of the electors need to turn out to vote, and a majority of valid votes
must be secured before the measure can be approved.
In practice, this has meant that few referenda survive the course, but those that do tend
to have important political, social or economic consequences. Of these, the 1974
referendum on the divorce law was one of the most celebrated. The referendum
mechanism was used in this case by the Catholic right in an attempt to overturn the
divorce legislation passed four years previously Nearly three-fifths of those who turned
out voted against the abrogation of the law and in favour of the right to divorce. It was a
landmark event in Italian political life, and was followed by the failure (following a
dissolution) to institute an anti-abortion referendum in 1976, which jolted parliament into
approving new abortion legislation in 1978. These events were seen as litmus tests for
Italy’s growing secularization and liberalism, although the failed attempts to repeal anti-
terrorist legislation and to preserve wage indexation in the 1980s showed that the
referendum device does not always favour anti-conservative causes.
Nevertheless, it has generally been the radical Left rather than the Right that has
championed the referendum as an instrument of popular democracy. Indeed, the former
Radical Party under its leader Marco Pannella has been the leading force in many of the
referenda initiatives since the 1970s. Chief among them has been the campaign to reform
the Italian voting system, with the aim of instituting a majoritarian system which might
result in less corruption and break the stranglehold of the party system. A rare success in
the courts allowed a lay—Catholic coalition of electoral reformers to call a referendum
on the abolition of the preference vote in parliamentary elections. To outsiders, the 1991
referendum seemed a trivial measure, but the fact that over 60 per cent of Italian voters
turned out with over 95 per cent voting for the abolition of the preference vote meant that
the political establishment had suffered its first serious defeat. Two years later, after
much judicial wrangling, an even bigger campaign succeeded in altering the electoral
system for the Senate, thus forcing a by now discredited parliament to introduce ‘first
past the post’ elections for three-quarters of parliamentary seats. Thus it could be said
that the popular referendum has been both the midwife and the executioner of the ‘First
Italian Republic’.
See also: electoral systems
Further reading
Ambrosini, G. (1993) Referendum, Milan: Bollati Boringhieri.
Caciagli, M. and Uleri, P. (eds) (1994) Democrazie e referendum (Democracies and Referendums),
Rome: Laterza.
Donovan, M. (1995) ‘The Referendum and the Transformation of the Party System’, Modern Italy
1(1):53–69 (discusses the key referenda on voting reform of the early 1990s).
SIMON PARKER
Entries A–Z 707
regional cooking
It has been remarked that Italy, an ancient country but a young nation, finally managed
through political unification in 1860–1 to bring together a wide range of regional states,
all different from each other and all with strong individual identities. This observation
might serve equally well to underscore the unity in diversity of Italian regional cooking,
for a large part of the originality and richness of Italy’s great culinary tradition derives
from its twenty diverse regions, which are characterized by different geographical and
climatic features, varying ethnic ancestry of the natives, individual agricultural products
and diverse histories. Another factor in the culinary equation is that, on the whole, two
parallel eating traditions have survived for centuries as a reflection of the social divide
between the rich and the poor. The first is documented in detail by books on gastronomy
written by experts, the second is borne out by traditions passed down through
generations. In addition, one needs to keep in mind the obvious but important fact that the
poorer classes were inevitably forced to rely on what was available and affordable to
them in the areas where they lived.
A review of historical influences can also aid an understanding of the variety of Italian
regional cooking. The expansion of the Roman empire dramatically expanded its citizens’
previous frugal diet, though early Christian customs signalled the return of a severe
approach to food. Fifth-century contact with barbarians left legacies such as the raw-meat
steak tartare, while the splendour of the Renaissance was similarly reflected in a cuisine
characterized by the use of new spices, fruits, vegetables and cereals arriving from
recently explored lands.
Political unification accelerated the spread of local culinary customs beyond regional
boundaries, thus initiating an ongoing process of mingling and cross-fertilization. For
example, after the heroic phase of the Risorgimento was over in 1870, the use of fresh
tomatoes to make pasta al sugo (pasta with tomato sauce), spread from the South, where
tomatoes had been cultivated almost exclusively, to the whole of the peninsula.
Furthermore, although the distinction between the cuisine of the affluent classes and that
of il popolo (the working classes) continued, the gradual process of democratization
slowly modified this relationship to the point where, as economic wealth spread, the diet
of the working classes came to include food previously out of their reach, while rustic,
simple peasant foods came to be also appreciated by the more affluent and served on
more sophisticated tables. The rapid modernization in the postwar period and the spread
of modern technology further facilitated this blending; in particular, improved
transportation made products readily accessible to all, while also bringing together
diverse traditions and experiences and accentuating interchange and reciprocities. Yet,
notwithstanding this process of inveitable homogenization, the spectrum of Italian
regional cooking remained, and remains, extra-ordinarily varied.
Regions in the northeast of Italy, blessed with abundant water from the river Po, share
the common denominators of rice and corn. The first has inspired the creation of a whole
range of risotti from the Venetian risi e bisi (rice with peas) to the risotto with mussels or
crab, risotto nero with cuttlefish ink or the risotti paired with vegetables: pumpkin,
asparagus, beans, radicchio and fennels. From corn are derived the range of polenta
dishes, with game or sausages, pork stews, cod or fresh and salt-water fish. In Friuli-
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 708
Venezia-Giulia are produced the world-renowned prosciutto di San Daniele and the local
fish soup, called simply brodetto, is justifiably famous. In Trentino Alto Adige, a
mountainous and wooded area, the basic components of the local diet are, predictably,
meat and game preparations. Well-known and much exported is speck, a local smoked
meat product.
On the northwestern side, Liguria with its dramatic marine landscape but scarce arable
land is well known for both fish and vegetable recipes. The fragrant pesto sauce
originated here. In the spectacular but harsh mountainous area of Val d’Aosta, soups
based on meat broth are appropriately reinvigorating. Polenta concia (polenta baked in
alternate layers with fontina, butter and finely sliced tartufi) is another well-known
speciality of this region. From Lombardy come risotto alla milanese and cotolette alla
milanese plus an impressive range of cheeses (stracchino, gorgonzola, robiola) and the
Christmas cake, panettone. Piedmont prides itself on an exclusive combination of meats
(turkey, beef, pork, veal, chicken and goose) and vegetables (potatoes, lentils, onion and
cabbage) plus sauces (mustard, pickles, green sauce) which all together produce the
bollito misto, lengthy in preparation but deliciously satisfying. Fonduta, another
Piedmontese speciality, consists of a cream made with fontina, butter, milk and white
tartufo and served piping hot.
In Central Italy, the enchanting variety of the landscape of its five regions is matched
by a panorama of gastronomic wonders. The Tuscan cuisine, based on excellent natural
ingredients meticulously prepared, features the succulent bistecca alla fiorentina, white
bean soups and stuffed cannelloni. Roman gastronomy offers unrivalled vegetable dishes,
lamb or mutton preparations and a whole repertoire of spaghetti (alla carbonara,
all’amatriciana, al cacio e pepe). Umbria produces and makes use of its excellent olive
oil; local tartufo nero used on spaghetti or trout transforms them into refined specialities
such as spaghetti alla nursina or trota al tartufo. The cuisine in the Marche region has
recipes dating back to Roman times. The local white lasagna dish named vincigrassi is
justly defined as incomparable, and the Marche version of brodetto, requiring between
twelve and twenty varieties of fish to make properly, is also renowned for its exquisite
taste. We come then to Emilia, where Bologna is regarded as the gastronomic capital of
Italy. Ravioli, tortellini and cappelletti originated here. The stuffing of these homemade
pasta determines subtle differences in taste and constitutes almost an art. From Emilia,
parmigiano reggiano and pork products are exported everywhere in the world. In the
Romagna area, along the sea, brodetto alla romagnola is a celebrated dish based on local
fish.
Moving to southern Italy, Naples is the predominant gastronomic force in the
Campania region. The wealth of its dishes, both from the aristocratic and the plebeian
traditions, offers examples such as pizza, parmigiana di melenzane, polpi affogati, came
alla genovese and the famous ragu alla napoletana, a lengthy preparation of meat whose
superb sauce is used on pasta. Abruzzi compensates the difficult mountainous
geographical position with the quality of its products and the creativity of its experienced
cooks. One of the famous local specialities is maccheroni alla chitarra, fresh pasta
resembling guitar strings, with a ragu
sauce and tiny veal meat balls. L’Aquila is
renowned for its panarda, which consists of forty different dishes served in one single
meal. In Puglia, the regional cuisine makes skilful use of vegetables and also pairs them
with pasta, creating original minestre (varieties of soup). The oil here is strong in flavour,
Entries A–Z 709
and this region is also renowned for abundant seafood used in many traditional recipes. In
Basilicata, a geographically isolated region, culinary traditions have remained unchanged
for centuries under the local families’ custody. Popular meat dishes are based on lamb
and pork; vegetables are baked in delicious combinations with a generous use of hot
chilli. Calabria is not a wealthy region, however, and its cuisine finds its roots in the
ancient Mediterranean civilization. Local olive oil is used to cook most foods. Eggplants
are used in a rich variety of recipes: in agro dolce, a funghetto or grilled with anchovies,
alla parmigiana. Based on cod, the celebrated baccalà alla castrovillari includes cod and
sweet or hot peppers, and there is an extensive range of hand-made pasta.
Sicilian cuisine reflects the stratification of the many cultures that have settled on the
island over the centuries. In particular, the Arabic culture seems to have left a most
definite mark. The renowned cake cassata, from Palermo, is an example of this lineage.
Out of the innumerable vegetables dishes caponata, based on eggplants, is elaborate in
preparation but unforgettable in taste. Pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines) is another
gastronomic landmark of Palermo. Sweets and cakes di tradizione conventuale
(originally made by nuns) are mostly based on almond paste; brightly coloured and
shaped like fruit, these sweets are a traditional feature of most Sicilian pasticcerie (cake
shops). The other large Italian island, Sardinia, offers two types of bread, unusual in
shape and texture: carasau and carta da musica. The many local sauces for pasta (with
walnuts, with ricotta, with lamb and pork) give this food its unique Sardinian flavour.
Meats are grilled and flavoured with myrtle leaves. In seafood, Cagliari offers its famous
fish soup, buridda, which is inherited from Liguria.
The wide variety of its regional cuisine is no doubt one of the most fascinating
features of Italian culture. However, the only effective way to understand and truly
appreciate its appeal and complexity is through an exploration via tastebuds. As Italian
novelist Italo Calvino perceptively suggested, a genuine voyage involves a radical
change of diet, an ingestion of the visited country’s fauna and flora, and thus of its very
culture.
Further reading
Cattaneo-Jarrat, E. and Jarrat, V. (1969) 230 maniere di cucinare la pasta (230 Ways of Cooking
Pasta) Milan: Mondadori (see in particular the introduction written by writer and journalist
Paolo Monelli).
de‘Medici Strutti, L. (1988) Italy, The Beautiful Cookbook: Authentic Recipes from the Regions of
Italy, Sydney: Child & Associates.
Gentile, E. (1997) La grande Italia (The Great Italy), Milan: Mondadori (see in particular: ‘Parte
prima, La patria degli italiani’ (Part I: The Italians’ Homeland)).
Piccinardi, A. (1993) Dizionario di gastronomia (Dictionary of Gastronomy), Milan: Rizzoli.
Roden, C. (1989) The Food of Italy: Region by Region, London: Vintage.
MARIELLA TOTARO GENEVOIS
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 710