Today the term “fusion” is used as if the “syncretized” cuisine were a new fact.
The Cuisine is the most concrete expression of human communication.
As such, it is affected – it undergoes and rejoices – from the interactions of the environment: geographical, meteorological, historical, cultural and, why not, also political.
Our history, complicated, with peoples who for centuries have passed on our land – and continue to pass – for various reasons – wars of conquest, religious pilgrimages, immigration, market and trade, tourism – our history, I said, is one of the strongest “builders” of our Cuisine.
What about our geographical position? A tongue of land extending in the sea from north to south – a position to envy: everyone, for whatever reason, had to (still have) “jump” on Italy to go from north to south – and vice versa – and from east to west – and vice versa – Everyone leaving and taking something. Especially in the kitchen
There are commonplaces such as defining spaghetti with tomato sauce – or pizza – the most representative dish of ITALIAN CUISINE – which I have deliberately written with capital letters because, this non-existent cuisine is by far the best in the world.
Let’s analyze the spaghetti with tomato sauce:
Spaghetti: durum wheat semolina and water. This blend is not the only one in the world, but THIS SPECIFIC dough was found in Italy, a dough to be worked for a long time to develop gluten so as to give it the consistency we know.
The shape: although the laganon – pasta in its early days – have been known since ancient Rome, the typical shape of spaghetti seems to come from China. We already have a first “fusion” element. Tomato: originally from Mexico, in Italy it has found the perfect habitat for its cultivation. The Italian culinary imagination has elaborated not one, but countless tomato sauces (who has never said: “my grandmother’s sauce is the best in the world”), cooking it (yes, cooking it!) Definitely combined with our gold, the extra virgin olive oil, and some aromas. Not coriander (ohibò!), But pungent garlic, fragrant basil, creating a perfect harmony of flavors. We have a second “fusion” element: the tomato.
n’An analysis like this can be done with most of our dishes: in the techniques we find Arab, Spanish, North African, “barbarian” ( foreign from Northern Europe, as the Romansa defined them) influences.
The list of ingredients is very long: sweet almonds brought by the Arabs to Sicily in the seventh century AD, arrived to them from the Far East; and then again aubergines, spinach … and above all rice, the cultivation of which has changed the appearance of many Italian countryside and has built aqueducts to bring water where there was none.
Foods that arrived in the Renaissance from the New World: corn, peppers, turkey …
Today our markets are full of still semi-unknown vegetables. But they will be for a while: tapioca, yucca, bitter cucumbers, boy chok, variety of legumes will soon be on our tables after hiring an “Italian” forge.
Yep: because food, once it arrives on our peninsula, takes its citizenship. Examples? The coffee
How many ways are there in Italy to prepare coffee? And isn’t our coffee the best of all??
..mmhhh did I write “our” coffee? But where does coffee come from if not from tropical countries? However, we know how to toast, mix, invent different machines (from the espresso in the bar to the home mocha) to extract its essence and have the hot and aromatic drink that we cannot give up. We are crazy about coffee, we perceive its nuances, we cannot stand bars where they do not “know how to do it”, each of us has their own (low, long, macchiato, sugar-free, with honey, short in a large cup, glass …). There is none like Italian coffee.
And the chocolate? The cocoa arrived from the New World… but not the chocolate, which is Italian instead. Work of the chemical ingenuity of Piedmontese confectioners, who were able to transform the cocoa beans brought by the Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition in 1583. A balanced mixture of roasted cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar and lots and lots of processing – conching, tempering ect ect -. Wisdom also recognized by Mr. Lindt who, a couple of centuries later, came down from Switzerland to learn the art of chocolate making on Piedmontese soil. But how many “engineering” minds participated in the creation of chocolate as we know it today?
So let’s think of the sweet-strong wild boar from the deep Tuscan countryside, with chocolate mixed with the cooking juices; let’s think of the sweet and sour – an Arab reference – of the Sicilian caponata; pasta with sardines, where pine nuts, fennel and raisins recall the taste of Africa; let’s think of the Piedmontese Bonet, so close to France.
In such a context, even talking about Regional Cuisines is an understatement: in Tuscany alone there are Garfagnana, Lunigiana, Maremma, Val di Chiana, Val d’Orcia, Casentino, Mugello … there are about 20 different areas, each with particular and unique culinary traditions.
And then where do we want to put inventiveness? Knowing how to exploit each product – rice, eggplant, peppers, corn, avocado, spices … … – so that everyone can give their best. And inventing machines and tools, from the coffee machine, to the simple wooden gnocchi line: all tools designed for its own purpose
Italy is a melting pot of dialects, aromas, flavors, shades. But nothing is given to chance, everything has a purpose and a derivation
Reasons why I say that Italian Cuisine does not exist.
There are many, all different, all sublime, all Italian.