Buon
appetito! Everyone loves Italian food. But how did the Italians come to
eat so well?
The answer lies amid the vibrant beauty of Italy's historic cities. For
a thousand years, they have been magnets for everything that makes for
great eating: ingredients, talent, money, and power. Italian food is
city food.
From the bustle of
medieval Milan's marketplace to the banqueting halls of Renaissance
Ferrara; from street stalls in the putrid alleyways of
nineteenth-century Naples to the noisy trattorie of postwar Rome: in
rich slices of urban life, historian and master storyteller John Dickie
shows how taste, creativity, and civic pride blended with princely
arrogance, political violence, and dark intrigue to create the world's
favorite cuisine.
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Delizia! is much more than a history of Italian food.
It is a history of Italy told through the flavors and character of its
cities. |
A dynamic chronicle that is full of surprises, Delizia! draws
back the curtain on much that was unknown about Italian food and
exposes the long-held canards. It interprets the ancient Arabic map
that tells of pasta's true origins, and shows that Marco Polo did not
introduce spaghetti to the Italians, as is often thought, but did have
a big influence on making pasta a part of the American diet. It seeks
out the medieval recipes that reveal Italy's long love affair with
exotic spices, and introduces the great Renaissance cookery writer who
plotted to murder the Pope even as he detailed the aphrodisiac
qualities of his ingredients. It moves from the opulent theater of a
Renaissance wedding banquet, with its gargantuan ten-course menu
comprising hundreds of separate dishes, to the thin soups and bland
polentas that would eventually force millions to emigrate to the New
World. It shows how early pizzas were disgusting and why Mussolini
championed risotto. Most important, it explains the origins and growth
of the world's greatest urban food culture.
With its delectable mix of vivid storytelling, groundbreaking research, and shrewd analysis, Delizia!
is as appetizing as the dishes it describes. This passionate account of
Italy's civilization of the table will satisfy foodies, history buffs,
Italophiles, travelers, students -- and anyone who loves a well-told
tale.
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Delizia!
The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food
by John Dickie
Free Press, 2010
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a copy
Reviewed in
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