Italy (and, hence, italian food history) has, possibly, the richest urban history of the whole planet and the enviable culinary habits of the Bel Paese are an indissoluble part of its traditions and habits.
Like I wrote on the homepage of this site, Italy and italian people are not always just having food in their minds, despite what one may think.
That is, I, being Italian, can tell that it is not just food that we are talking about here: it is rather about a food culture that goes proudly along with an intimate connection italians have with the territory, the peoples and their roots.
If you think about it, after all, it was a natural consequence.Cities were, in fact, the only places where everything that was needed to develop a great gastronomy concentrated: ingredients and culinary skills, naturally, but also power, richness, markets and social competition. Italian gastronomy gives its best in the urban markets, less so in the countryside farms.
A tradition for its consumption, from times past, was to dip freselle directly with sea water and with pure fresh tomato, which was squeezed to let the juices out.
This is a demonstration that italian gastronomy has nothing to envy to the one of other Countries.
When talking about italian food history, you might have sometimes heard the expression civilt della tavola (civilisation of the table).
Truth is, Italy has become a model to imitate in the way ingredients are to be prepared, cooked and then consumed in company.
There are even studies that want to prove that the italian way of cooking and eating brings benefits to people's health and that it is, therefore, to learn and adopt in some of its gastronomic lessons.
Malnourishment and hunger are fundamental elements of the italian food history and all our accounts proceed through the food habits of the dominators and of the dominated, through the daily alimentation and the meals of the higher classes.
Along with their hanging from a wooden beam on the ceiling, friselle were preserved in clay jars, called quartieri or capasoni.
This image has deeply contributed to the prominence that Italy has gained in the panorama of the worldwide gastronomy.
In the end, this is the beauty of this journey: we will not reach a destination, but will always find new starting points.
Thinking about all the different typical food products that invade the italian tables, it's easy to think that just everything there derives from skillful hands of people that from father to son, from generation to generation, follow the discipline that their great-grand-father used according to the farmers' and countryside traditions of the territory and of the italian food history.
Indeed these products are traditional and follow long prescribed preparation methods and processes, but observing more closely we will together discover that italian food history and, for that matter, of Italy in general, is less of a simple farmers' tradition as we think.
This sort of literature flourished between the XIII and the XIV centuries, all over Europe, and especially there were not only the arts of fine cooking were more sought-after, but where the economic (and, hence, the political and cultural) power pulsated.
Sizes are variable: friselles diameter and their holes diameter can vary from 5-10 centimeters to 20 or more.
Italian history and italian food history has long been marked by the lifestyle of the rural masses: especially in the northern and central regions, the mezzadra (sharecropping) partially preserved farmers from hunger and the hard and grueling fatigues that represented the standard way of living of the rural masses throughout Italy, up to the 1960's.
Indeed, these books were not covering eating habits, but gastronomic expertise: one thing is nutrition and alimentation habits of the common people, linked to their territories and products, another is a treatise on the art of combining the finest ingredients, from the different parts of the known world to satisfy even the most exigent of the palates.
Think about the typical crostini di fegato toscani (tuscan crostini with liver) or the bistecca alla fiorentina (florentine steak): these dishes are far from being poor, and the rural masses could only dream of such delicacies!
Up to the first half of the 17 century, and by looking at the first documentations produced in 1861 (just after Italy's Unification) to give an account of the status of the italian population, endless accounts can be read of how precarious and poor the dietary conditions of the common people in the countryside were.
Spices were not only a precious trading good (since ancient times), they were a real status symbol, back then. Many traders made fortunes by discovering or inventing new trading routes, to supply the ever increasing demand for spices among the higher classes and, as a result of this trend-setting, more and more among lower classes too.
In the past, the size of friselle measured the quantity of bread necessary to the nourishment of a worker and usually provided the major part of the calories in the meal.
This sauce has been one of the main ingredients of the farmers' diet throughout the past millennium and its recipe, thankfully, is only traceable in the memory: that sauce means hunger.
But from all this, we should not err, thinking that what we have today was created then and only from the customs of the noble classes.Those times most probably marked the birth of the Italian gastronomy as we could think of today: at the same time, they were leveraging numerous distinct habits that for centuries (or millennia) had characterised the Italian and other territories and that would later mark the borders of national vs regional cuisines.
A history of italian food that only covered what farmers used to eat in the countryside would risk to sound a bit monotonous and awkward, to the modern passionate: long chapters on vegetarian soups and breads prepared from lower quality ingredients would be present and this is not what I want to give you here.
Like I wrote on the homepage of this site, Italy and italian people are not always just having food in their minds, despite what one may think.
That is, I, being Italian, can tell that it is not just food that we are talking about here: it is rather about a food culture that goes proudly along with an intimate connection italians have with the territory, the peoples and their roots.
If you think about it, after all, it was a natural consequence.Cities were, in fact, the only places where everything that was needed to develop a great gastronomy concentrated: ingredients and culinary skills, naturally, but also power, richness, markets and social competition. Italian gastronomy gives its best in the urban markets, less so in the countryside farms.
A tradition for its consumption, from times past, was to dip freselle directly with sea water and with pure fresh tomato, which was squeezed to let the juices out.
This is a demonstration that italian gastronomy has nothing to envy to the one of other Countries.
When talking about italian food history, you might have sometimes heard the expression civilt della tavola (civilisation of the table).
Truth is, Italy has become a model to imitate in the way ingredients are to be prepared, cooked and then consumed in company.
There are even studies that want to prove that the italian way of cooking and eating brings benefits to people's health and that it is, therefore, to learn and adopt in some of its gastronomic lessons.
Malnourishment and hunger are fundamental elements of the italian food history and all our accounts proceed through the food habits of the dominators and of the dominated, through the daily alimentation and the meals of the higher classes.
Along with their hanging from a wooden beam on the ceiling, friselle were preserved in clay jars, called quartieri or capasoni.
This image has deeply contributed to the prominence that Italy has gained in the panorama of the worldwide gastronomy.
In the end, this is the beauty of this journey: we will not reach a destination, but will always find new starting points.
Thinking about all the different typical food products that invade the italian tables, it's easy to think that just everything there derives from skillful hands of people that from father to son, from generation to generation, follow the discipline that their great-grand-father used according to the farmers' and countryside traditions of the territory and of the italian food history.
Indeed these products are traditional and follow long prescribed preparation methods and processes, but observing more closely we will together discover that italian food history and, for that matter, of Italy in general, is less of a simple farmers' tradition as we think.
This sort of literature flourished between the XIII and the XIV centuries, all over Europe, and especially there were not only the arts of fine cooking were more sought-after, but where the economic (and, hence, the political and cultural) power pulsated.
Sizes are variable: friselles diameter and their holes diameter can vary from 5-10 centimeters to 20 or more.
Italian history and italian food history has long been marked by the lifestyle of the rural masses: especially in the northern and central regions, the mezzadra (sharecropping) partially preserved farmers from hunger and the hard and grueling fatigues that represented the standard way of living of the rural masses throughout Italy, up to the 1960's.
Indeed, these books were not covering eating habits, but gastronomic expertise: one thing is nutrition and alimentation habits of the common people, linked to their territories and products, another is a treatise on the art of combining the finest ingredients, from the different parts of the known world to satisfy even the most exigent of the palates.
Think about the typical crostini di fegato toscani (tuscan crostini with liver) or the bistecca alla fiorentina (florentine steak): these dishes are far from being poor, and the rural masses could only dream of such delicacies!
Up to the first half of the 17 century, and by looking at the first documentations produced in 1861 (just after Italy's Unification) to give an account of the status of the italian population, endless accounts can be read of how precarious and poor the dietary conditions of the common people in the countryside were.
Spices were not only a precious trading good (since ancient times), they were a real status symbol, back then. Many traders made fortunes by discovering or inventing new trading routes, to supply the ever increasing demand for spices among the higher classes and, as a result of this trend-setting, more and more among lower classes too.
In the past, the size of friselle measured the quantity of bread necessary to the nourishment of a worker and usually provided the major part of the calories in the meal.
This sauce has been one of the main ingredients of the farmers' diet throughout the past millennium and its recipe, thankfully, is only traceable in the memory: that sauce means hunger.
But from all this, we should not err, thinking that what we have today was created then and only from the customs of the noble classes.Those times most probably marked the birth of the Italian gastronomy as we could think of today: at the same time, they were leveraging numerous distinct habits that for centuries (or millennia) had characterised the Italian and other territories and that would later mark the borders of national vs regional cuisines.
A history of italian food that only covered what farmers used to eat in the countryside would risk to sound a bit monotonous and awkward, to the modern passionate: long chapters on vegetarian soups and breads prepared from lower quality ingredients would be present and this is not what I want to give you here.
About the Author:
Many of you are probably researching about Italian food traditions. You can find some of the best information that you are looking for about these traditions on the Internet.
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