The Social Construction of Italian Slow Food

Italians love to tell you how great the food in Italy is. They go on and on about, fresh cheese this, seasonal that. They initiated the Slow Food movement for crying out loud. Taken at face value it seems that Italians have forever been in step with nature, seasonal produce and local artisanal producers. This is just one of the many ways that Italians not so subtly demonstrate that they are well, better than us.

Apparently, however Italian food historian Montanari (1996:161) begs to differ.

Montanari emphasises just how much producers and consumers have traditionally seen seasonality as an affliction. He says 'symbiosis with nature and dependence upon her rhythms was once practically complete, but this is not to say that such a state of affairs was desirable; indeed, at times it was identified as a form of slavery'. This was especially true of the poorer sections of society, where consumption of foods such as grains and legumes was the norm precisely because these foods could be easily conserved. Access to fresh and perishable foods - such as vegetables, meat ad fish - was the luxury of an elite few. This, 'the desire to overcome the seasonality of products and the dependence on nature and region was acute, though the methods for doing so were expensive (and prestigious); they required wealth and power'. Montanari therefore concludes that it is 'doubtful whether we can attribute either a happy symbiosis with nature or and enthusiastic love for the seasonality of food to "traditional" food culture

In Morgan, K., T. Marsden and J. Murdoch, 2006. Worlds of Food: Place, Power, and Provenance in the Food Chain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg, 9