The One about “The Great Italian Food Psychosis”

Where to begin…To say that food is a big part of the Italian culture is an understatement. In today’s society, Italian food is most admired, French food coming in second. But it wasn’t always like that. I am currently taking a food history course and it’s amazing so far. In the class our teacher talked about how Italians think their food is the very best in the world--the great Italian food psychosi--as he called it. Period. No debate, No discussion, it just is the best. We then divulged into a discussion about WHY?

Warning: History Lesson (feel free to skip, but I think it’s interesting)-
To start, we looked at foreign restaurants in Italy, supermarkets in Italy and fast food restaurants in Italy. The conclusion was Italians only like their food. There are about 2 fast food places in Perugia, 10ish foreign food places (such as Chinese, Indian and Mexican…and apparently they aren’t good). And Italians have the fewest supermarkets in all of Western Europe because they eat fresh food. Despite this current view of superiority when it comes to the world of food, it definitely wasn’t always like this. In the 1800s Italian food was despised, but it all really started changing around 1935. First Italians experienced a food shortage (1935-1942), then starvation (1943-1945) due to events of World War II. When the war ended Italians didn’t feel a sense of nationality. Mussolini had been patriotically crazed and people clearly didn’t want to be associated with him. So the two dominant political groups—Christian Democracy and Communism—rejected patriotism. The Christians felt they should show loyalty to the Pope, communism showed their loyalty towards the Soviets. Italy, however, still needed some sense of community and pride. Hence FOOD (soccer, cars, art and fashion) became the substitute for pride of the country, or military etc. and national institutions disappeared.

This story still doesn’t explain how they became number 1 in the world of food. As Italy’s food got better, and immigrants in the United States made Italian food, we fell in love with the taste. Pizza, pasta, bread, wine…c’mon it is pretty amazing! Americanized Italian food has spread around the world, the Mediterranean diet became seen as “the healthiest” and the rest is history…Italian food is now the leading food in the world!

My experience with Italian food: 

The very first night we arrived, we stayed in a hotel and we were immediately greeted with Italian food. We had one of those many course deals: bread, pasta, meat and potatoes, some corn dish, and then chocolate mousse. It was amazing. However, that treatment didn’t last long. The next day we were tossed out on our own into the world of Italy. So we explored and decided “hey, it’s our first day here let’s eat out.” Café Bleu seemed cute and quaint so we decided to go in. For those of you who don’t know (and I was one of them) generally when you are in Italy if you see a menu with pictures of the food on it don’t eat there because the food is frozen and merely reheated! Most of the girls ordered pizza. Picture Elios only worse! I guess you could say I was luckier and ordered spaghetti but it still wasn’t this Italian spaghetti I had been hearing about for the past 4 months! So ironically my first meal that I bought in Italy wasn’t very good. But it created a good story and a good laugh for us all!

My first meal in Italy...umm...frozen spaghetti!

We’ve made up for our first epic fail over the past week and a half. My roomies, all 7 of us, like to have “family dinners.” I’ve cooked two meals myself, spaghetti with meat sauce and baked ziti and they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Bethany made a delicious chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans meal. Mashed potatoes credit goes out to Brit!!!!!! Amanda and Brit together have created some pretty epic meals also. Mostly amazing pasta dishes, and last night Amanda made eggplant parmesan! It was mmm mmm good.

Bethany's Chicken, green bean creation with a side of Brits mashed potatoes :) good night

proof of my ziti creation!

Sarah made zucchini 

We have also gone out to some pretty amazing places. I’ve had pizza, gelato, some amazing pasta, bread and so much more!

The Gelato is rich and creamy. I’ve unfortunately only had it once! I know crazy, right!? But we will have it again soon, and I am sure over the semester I will get it lots. There were 3 flavors I’ve tasted, Crème, Chocolate, and Hazelnut. My personal favorite was Hazelnut, second was Chocolate and third was Crème. But don’t get me wrong the crème sure wasn’t bad…it was amazing so you can only imagine the other two!

chocolate!

my favorite, hazelnut. its to die for.

Pizza still looks like American pizza, but it sure doesn’t taste like it. I don’t know why, but it is just better over here. Maybe it’s because they use better ingredients. Who knows? Pizza originated in Naples, and it wasn’t until the past few decades that it became more widely found across the entire country. I look forward to going south and trying pizza that will probably be even more authentic and maybe even tastier!

une pizza margherita. aka cheese pizza

pizza pompodoro...pizza with tomatoes. 

Pasta! I love pasta; I could probably live off of pasta for the rest of my life if I had to. So I don’t complain when Italians literally have a pasta course. It isn’t common for everyone to sit down and have the four course meal I have previously mentioned in other posts, but when they do the pasta course never lets you down. We have cooked pasta in one form or another at every dinner so far with the exception of one, and whenever I go out I always order a pasta dish. They do still have dried pasta, but the “fresh” pasta for lack of better word is amazing…and I can still buy barilla which I find hilarious.

I ordered ravioli with a red and white sauce...best ravioli's I've ever eaten

Brit picked risotto...also delicious

Amanda picked a pumpkin pasta dish of some sort, it too was great!

Lastly, the bread in Perugia I think is really good. There is no salt in the bread so some people don’t like it but I still do. You may be asking “Why is there no salt in the bread”…well my friends, the salt war of 1540 duh! The salt war was basically a rebellion by the city of Perugia against the Papal States during Pope Paul III. So Perugia didn’t have to pay for tax on salt, long story short the Papal states then started requiring them to do so, and Perugia decided to stop putting salt in there bread as a little “Boston Tea Party” equivalent. Wikipedia it or goolge it if you want a better explanation, if I learn more maybe I will let you know!

  

they don't use butter here, just olive oil!
Or you can use Bethany's creation of Olive Oil and Balsamic!

I can’t wait to travel around and eat the traditional Italian meals from different regions, fish, different pastas, bread, wine, pizza and who knows what else!?

Moral of this post, if you are in Italy…EAT!

Grazie, Arielle