History of Italian Pasta (part 4)
plus one historical recipe from The New York Times archive (1953)
The past is over, but the future is not yet here.
Antonio Gramsci
Thank you for reading and sharing.
Monica
La versione in italiano di Food Notes from Bologna è Fritto Misto.
How many people associate the word pasta with Italy?
Millions, everywhere in the world.
And it is precisely this widespread association that, after a very long journey, puts the word The End to the history of pasta as a symbol of Italian national identity.
This process has a recent ending since the phenomenon came to an end in the fifteen years following the end of World War II.
Whenever I reflect aloud on this fact during a food writing class, I register amazement among the Italian participants.
The idea that pasta and Italian-ish have not always been a couple seems strange today. And yet pasta needs centuries before it becomes a significant component of Italian culture, not just gastronomic.
Brief recap from the previous newsletter
In Naples, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, pasta becomes a staple food even for poor people; again, we find the first pasta and tomato combination, a formidable boost to its spread.
The Italian political leaders of the new kingdom of Italy take aggregating elements for forming national identity even from the Italian gastronomic culture.
The cookbook written by the Italian gastronome Artusi (1891) helps the diffusion of pasta culture among Italians. Who, it must be said, still and predominantly eat bread soups and polenta, true staple foods of the poor people diet, at least until the mid-20th century.
This newsletter concludes the journey through the history of Italian pasta consisting of a series of 4 (part 1, part 2, part 3).
Of course, there will be new stories and recipes, even a bit of Via Emilia.
But now, the main characters of the last compelling chapters are waiting.
Shall we go?
In the last three decades of the 19th century, two actors hitherto unrelated to this story enter the scene
Italian pasta entrepreneurs;
the immigrants who leave Italy for Europe and America.
Italian pasta geography
In the early 19th century, Agnesi, Buitoni, De Cecco, Voiello, and Barilla are the first to transform dry pasta production from semi-craft to industrial.
Liguria, Tuscany/Umbria, Abruzzo, Campania, and Emilia-Romagna are the Italian regions where the first companies arose.
Their history almost always starts from a mill or a fresh pasta store.
In 1824, Paolo Battista Agnesi buys a mill in Pontedassio, Liguria, to grind wheat and start the production of dry pasta from which Italy's first pasta factory, Paolo Agnesi and Sons, was born.
In San Sepolcro (Tuscany, 1827), Giovanni Battista Buitoni runs a small pasta store with his wife. In 1856, his sons open a lab in Città di Castello (Umbria), increasing production. The first foreign company abroad is in 1934 (France), while in 1939, in New York, Giovanni Buitoni founds the Buitoni Foods Corporation.
In Abruzzo, 1831, Antonio Nicola De Cecco begins the family business with the mill at Fara di San Martino (Abruzzo), which, in 1886, becomes Pastificio De Cecco.
The company participate in the World's Columbian Exposition (1893) in Chicago.
The "macaroni, vermicelli" produced by De Cecco wins first prize.
In the 1930s, Voiello originates from a marriage.
Swiss engineer August Vanvittel, engaged in construction work on the Naples-Portici railway line, meet and marry Rosetta Inzerillo, daughter of a pasta maker from Torre Annunziata (Campania). After the annexation of the south to the Kingdom of Italy, the family's surname on official documents change, becoming from Vojello to Voiello.
In 1879, the couple's son Giovanni open the first factory, Antico Pastificio Giovanni Voiello.
In 1877, in Parma (Emilia-Romagna), Pietro Barilla senior, a descendant of a family of bakers, start a business with a workshop where he begin producing small quantities of pasta. In 1910, the founder's sons open the first Barilla factory.
Italians mangiamaccheroni (macaroni-eaters)
In truth, pasta arrives in America before the waves of migration.
In the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and at the time ambassador to Paris, makes a tour of southern France and northern Italy.
In 1787, Jefferson is so impressed by pasta culture that he import a macaroni-making machine to America, which he improves and installes on his property in Monticello, Virginia.
It can be said that acquaintance in the U.S. territory, however restricted it must have been, precede the waves of migration. But it is only the massive exodus that begin in the last two decades of the nineteenth century that starts the construction of an Italian identity connected to pasta.
Whatever destination they choose, America, Canada, or Europe, Italians everywhere encounter discrimination and marginalization. The new life passes through the acceptance of new cultural patterns.
Through food, an operation of resistance to assimilation and unconscious vindication is carried out. The simple act of nourishment is a way not to forget and, at the same time, to evade assimilation.
In these kitchens, over time, memories mix and mingle, creating dishes and traditions that do not exist in Italy, such as spaghetti alla Bolognese and the tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
In the early 1900s, the first Spaghetti Houses open in America's Little Italy: plaid tablecloths, straw flasks, bolognisi, and carbunare. There is much folklore and sui generis Italian-ness in these restaurants. Bolognisi, for example, means pasta dressed with a meat sauce. I need not add that spaghetti Bolognese with meat sauce and meatballs is born here, out of Italy.
Abroad was born the stereotype of the Italian pasta-eater becoming a constitutive element of a national character. The term macaroni-eaters historically designate first the Sicilians and then the Neapolitans. Since now denotes Italians tout court.
From the ghetto to high society
The first Italian pasta-making settlements are family-owned and artisanal: they produce at home with rudimentary machines and sell to other Italians.
As demand grows, industrial penetration of Italian pasta makers in America begins, gradually replacing artisanal experiences. Among the pioneering companies is Buitoni.
As I said, in the early decades of the twentieth century, the archetype of the pasta-eating Italian takes shape abroad. The contempt for Italians also extends to their food, and it is a problem for new dry pasta companies interested in the American public and not just immigrants.
How to do it? New communication is needed.
After the end of World War I, making pasta familiar to Americans required disconnecting it from the Italian ghetto background of Little Italy.
Among Italian pasta entrepreneurs, Giovanni Buitoni plays a forward-looking role.
The entrepreneurs should try to broaden the appeal of pasta by making it less Italian and overcoming prejudices against it. In this context, the fake news of Marco Polo discovering spaghetti in China also plays well. For this reason, the press organ of the U.S. and Canadian Industrial Association publishes the news (I wrote about it in the History of Italian Pasta, Part 1), enriching it with the story of the sailor Mr. Spaghetti who goes ashore and discovers… spaghetti.
That story even becomes the screenplay of the movie The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938) starring Gary Cooper. Even Hollywood helps the spread of pasta.
Something similar has already happened with the recipe for Fettuccine Alfredo.
A dish that many people mistakenly believe originated in America.
The recipe for Fettuccine Alfredo is Italian. It becomes Italian-American after Douglas Fairbanks (one of the founders of the Academy Awards) and Mary Pickford, Hollywood silent film stars, both famous and influential, fell in love with this dish, which they eat for the first time in the Roman restaurant on Via della Scrofa.
They bring the recipe to their homeland. In America, it meets with great success that makes forget its Italian origin.
Duchess of Windsor and the Spaghetti Crown
Giovanni Buitoni spend long periods in New York to take care of the pasta business.
In 1940, in Times Square, he opens a restaurant dedicated to pasta seasoned with Italian sauces, both produced by Buitoni in the United States.
His intuition is to arrange steaming plates of seasoned pasta on a roller that carries them in front of customers.
And it is always he who introduces pasta to New York high society.
This event has a name and a date: the annual grand ball given by the Dukes of Windsor at the Waldorf Astoria in 1953.
Giovanni Buitoni, one of the sponsors, persuades the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, to serve a dish that expresses the essence of Italian-ness, a crown of spaghetti with mushrooms.
The recipe, a pasta timballo, is published in its entirety on March 17, 1953, on The New York Times with an article signed by Jane Nickerson (about her, Sam Sifton writes "Nickerson ran the food desk of The Times from 1942 to 1957 and shepherded Times readers through the austerity of wartime rationing and into the prosperous economy that followed, with hundreds and hundreds of news articles, restaurant reviews and recipes that continue to resonate today").
Between the end of World War II and the beginning of the so-called economic boom years, the transition that turns pasta from a food to an element of national identity is accomplished.
Pasta, the symbol of Italy
The fuel needed to finish the journey comes from the new media, cinema, and TV, and the explosion of mass tourism.
Most Italians meet an American for the first time during World War II.
And even for the U.S. military, Italy represents a discovery. Not surprisingly, after the end of the war, the first massive American tourism to Europe begins. In 1953, The New York Times publishes an article titled Boom of American Tourism in Italy, highlighting the significant increase in American tourists visiting Italy.
In some Italian movies of the 1950s, pasta and the new cult for all American things are celebrated. Even Italian TV, broadcasts began in 1953, advertises pasta.
In the following decades, even up to the 2000s, the communication choices make by advertising keep alive the myth of pasta as a symbol of Italian-ness by evoking images of home and family.
After a journey through eras and cultures, the identity of pasta in the 21st century is evolving and still seems to have much to say.
For example,
alongside the traditional one, new identity models emerge. For example, the formation of an ecological consciousness or new consumption patterns.
Besides the traditional durum-wheat dry pasta, new types of pasta made with alternative kinds of flour are emerging.
The epiphany of fresh homemade pasta.
Yet, product change does not shake the strength of the myth.
Pasta has a specific but flexible identity. Over time, that living food has shown an excellent level of adaptability.
The future? It is mumbling in the pot.
Mushrooms spaghetti crown.
The Recipe
This cycle dedicated to the history of Italian pasta could only end with this recipe: the mushroom spaghetti crown served by the Duchess of Windsor in 1953 and reported in the New York Times.
Cooking Notes
I bought a roll of ready-made brisée dough.
The recipe is easy to make yet sumptuous. Consider it for Sunday lunch or the holiday table. I think it is perfect for Easter, which, by the way, is just around the corner.
It is a vegetarian recipe you can prepare one or two days before; store in the fridge or slice and freeze (it will keep for over two months. I'm still eating some tasty slices I fish out of the freezer).
for 6 people
1-liter pudding-type mold.
Alternatively hinged mold, 22 or 25cm diameter
Ingredients
400 g of thin spaghetti
boiling water and coarse salt
50 g olive oil
500 ml béchamel sauce
300 g Champignons-type mushrooms
30 g butter
50 g olive oil
5 g fine salt
30 g breadcrumbs
2 eggs
100 g grated Parmesan cheese
80 g sliced cheese
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 package of brisée dough (about 230 g)
Method
Cook spaghetti al dente in boiling salted water, drain, pour into a bowl, and toss with olive oil to prevent sticking. Set aside.
Prepare the béchamel sauce (find the process here).
Discard the mushroom stems, then remove the skin covering the cap or wipe the top with a clean, slightly dampened cloth.
Slice and set aside.
In a large skillet, melt butter in oil, add mushrooms and half salt, and cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until mushrooms are soft and well cooked.
Preheat oven to 180C degrees (356F).
Pour the mushrooms into the spaghetti bowl and stir, then add the eggs, béchamel sauce, the rest of the salt, and Parmesan and stir again to mix all the ingredients well.
Line the mold with moistened and squeezed baking paper, then arrange the brisée dough into the mold. The dough has to come out of the mold.
Ideally, divide the dough into three parts.
Pour the first one into the bottom of the mold. Add half the cheese, then join another part of pasta, place the cheese slices, cover with the leftover spaghetti, and fold inward the excess brisée dough so that the bottom of the crown is closed (if the dough does not cover the entire bottom, do not worry).
Cover the mold with aluminum foil.
Bake in a preheated oven for about 40 minutes. Halfway through baking, remove the aluminum foil covering.
Let cool a few minutes before turning the timbale out onto a serving platter and serving it sliced.
You can reheat in a preheated oven by covering the timbale with aluminum foil.
You can store it in the refrigerator for up to two days. And in the freezer, already sliced, for up to two months.
Bibliographic Supplement
(the previous one is at the bottom of the newsletter part 1)
Benporat C., Cucina italiana del Quattrocento, Firenze, Olschki, 1996
Buitoni G., Storia di un imprenditore, Milano, Longanesi, 1972
Cafagna L., Cavour, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2010
di Giacomo G., La cucina dei quattro umori, in Civiltà della Tavola, n.249, 2013, pp. 5-6
Gabaccia D.R., We are what we eat: ethnic food and the making of Americans, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1998
Martellotti A., I ricettari di Federico II. Dal “Meridionale” al “Liber de coquina”, Firenze, Olschki, 2005
Nickerson J., News of Food, “Crown of Spaghetti with Mushrooms, is American Dish with Popular Appeal”, Tuesday, March 17, 1953, New York Times, p. 25
Prezzolini G., America in pantofole, Firenze, Vallecchi 2002
Prezzolini G., Maccheroni & C, Milano, Longanesi, 1957
Websites
Archivio storico New York Times (available for subscribers)
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Such an informative article. The pasta pioneers in America. Brave and creative people.