Around the Tuscan Table: Food, Family, and Gender in Twentieth Century Florence

257 Pages·2004·4.63 MB·English

by  Carole Counihan

Around the Tuscan Table
Around the Tuscan Table
Food, Family, and Gender in
Twentieth-Century Florence
Carole M.Counihan
ROUTLEDGE
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Published in 2004 by
Routledge
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New York, New York 10001
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Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
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www.routledge.co.uk
Copyright © 2004 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Counihan, Carole, 1948–
Around the Tuscan table: food, family, and gender in twentieth
century Florence/Carole M.Counihan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-94672-7 (hardcover: alk. paper) — ISBN 0-415-94673-5
(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Food habits—Italy—Florence—History—20th century. 2. Florence
(Italy) — Social life and customs—20th century. I. Title.
GT2850.C683 2004
394.1′2–dc22
2003017144
ISBN 0-203-49100-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57737-X (Adobe eReader Format)
This book is dedicated to
My husband, children, and grandchildren
Jim, Ben, Willie, Marisela, Julian, and Kristina
For the long haul
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Preface and Acknowledgments vii
1 Food as Voice in Twentieth-Century Florence 1
2 Florentine Cuisine and Culture 16
3 Historical Roots of Florentine Food, Family, and 34
Gender
4 Florentine Diet and Culture 55
5 Food Production, Reproduction, and Gender 76
6 Balancing Gender Differences 93
7 Commensality, Family, and Community 113
8 Parents and Children: Feeding and Gender 135
9 Food and Gender: Toward the Future 153
10 Conclusion: Molto, Ma Buono? 172
Appendices
Appendix A— Life Synopses of Subjects in 1984 187
Appendix B— Glossary of Italian Terms 190
Appendix C— Recipe List: Recipes Collected from All Subjects 197
Appendix D— Recipes 202
Notes 213
Bibliography 228
Index 241
List of Illustrations
Figure 1 Kinship chart of subjects in 1984 ix
Map 1 Italy showing Regions and Florence x
Map 2 Province of Florence x
Figure 1.1 The author heading off for an interview in summer 1984 3
Figure 1.2 McDonald’s in Florence, frequented heavily by young people, 5
March 2003
Figure 1.3 The flower shop in Via dei Bardi that belonged to Massimo 12
and Berta until 1974
Figure 2.1 The Tuscan countryside near Cerreto Guidi in 1984, with 17
olive, grape and grain growing
Figure 4.1 Menu board in elegant restaurant, with baccalà 57
Figure 6.1 Billboard at bus stop in Viale dei Mille, Florence, summer 108
1984, “Miss Vantaggio, più magro, più sexy, più
tutto”—“Miss Advantage—more thin, more sexy, more
everything”
Table 7.1 Facsimile of the food logs compiled by Florentines, summer 117
1984
Table 7.2 Facsimile of Valeria’s family’s weekly food expenses, 126
summer 1984
Figure 7.1 A meat and poultry store in Via Romana in March 2003 with 128
two of the many motorini that make Florence the motorino
capital of Italy
Figure 7.2 Fruit and vegetable stand at the mercatino (little market) in 129
Piazza S.Spirito, March 2003
Figure 10.1 Fagiolo gentili dall’occhio (“nice beans with an eye” or black- 174
eyed peas), March 2003
Figure 10.2 Esselunga (“Long S”) supermarket in Via Pisana, Florence, 176
March 2003
Figure 10.3 Chinese restaurant in Via dei Servi, Florence, March 2003 180
Preface and Acknowledgments
Writing this book has been a long journey. I spent the period from 1968 to 1984
immersed in Italian culture and the Italian family described here, the twenty-
three living relatives of a Florentine I call Leonardo, my former boyfriend,
fidanzato, and briefly husband. I had been a student at Stanford-in-Italy in 1968,
and after college graduation in 1970, I returned to Florence and lived for the next
three years in Via S.Ilario a Colombaia, just off the Via Senese, a few hundred
yards south of the Porta Romana. I met Leonardo in September 1970 and we
spent the next thirteen years living together in Florence, Sardinia, and Mass-
achusetts, while I pursued a doctorate in anthropology and he a bachelor’s and
master’s in fine arts. During the summers of 1982 and 1984,1 tape-recorded
formal, food-centered life histories with all of Leonardo’s living relatives (see
Figure 1). I am grateful for the openness and affection they showed me during
the project and throughout all the years of our acquaintance. They cooperated
fully in the interviews and gave me permission to write about them. When I
returned to Florence in March 2003, they again welcomed me warmly and shared
memories and thoughts about their everyday lives.
My experience in Italy contributed to my life in many ways. After traveling to
Sardinia in the early 1970s, I became fascinated with the land and the people and
decided to become an anthropologist to explore Sardinian culture further. I began
graduate school in anthropology at the University of Massachusetts in 1974 and
benefited from the European Studies Program and a Fulbright Grant to conduct
doctoral dissertation research in Bosa, Sardinia, in 1978–79. In 1982,1
inaugurated the food-centered life history research in Florence that has finally
resulted in this book. I owe my fortuitous decision to study food to the Italians’
constant confabulations about eating, which have resulted in years of good
eating, spirited talking, rich memories, and fruitful scholarship.
As I was embarking on a career in cultural anthropology, the study of food and
culture was simultaneously flowering. I am grateful to many scholars whose
work has contributed to my own, and I particularly want to recognize Joan
Jacobs Brumberg, Penny Van Esterik, Amy Bentley, Warren Belasco, Sidney
Mintz, George Armelagos, Françoise Sabban, Silvano Serventi, Martin Bruegel,
Steven Kaplan, Maurice Aymard, and Alberto Capatti.
viii
Many people contributed to this book. My husband, anthropologist Jim
Taggart, read and commented on several drafts, and for his wisdom, fine critical
ear, and years of support, I am deeply grateful. Carol Helstosky, Sabina
Magliocco, Gigliola Panico, and Betsy Whitaker read the complete first draft of
the manuscript, gave invaluable feedback, spurred me onward, and made this a
far better book. Any remaining lacunae are no fault of theirs, and for their
exceptional generosity, I am deeply grateful. I give special thanks to Gigliola
Panico for the title. At Routledge, I thank my editor, Ilene Kalish, for her insight
and encouragement, and Salwa Jabado, Donna Capato, and Brandy Mui for their
cheerful attention to detail.
I am indebted to many at Millersville University whose support has enriched
my work: all my sociology-anthropology department colleagues and especially
chairs Sam Casselberry and Mary Glazier; the Faculty Grants Committee whose
continued support has been a life line for scholarship; the Women’s and Latino
Studies programs and all their faculty who have kept ideas flowing; my former
dean, Dr. Rita Marinho, who granted release time at a critical moment; Dr.
Chuck Geiger of the Geography Department’s Geo-Graphics Laboratory for the
maps; president and former provost Dr. Francine McNairy; and Barb Dills,
Derek Shanahan, John Short, Ed Shane, Tracey Weis, Barb Stengel, Darla
Williams, Nancy Smith, Aida Ceara, and Beverly Skinner. I thank my student
assistants, Justin Garcia, Rebecca Gray, Megan Kirkpatrick, and Lauren Schaller
and out of gratitude to many remarkable Millersville students, I am donating a
portion of the royalties of this book to the Sociology-Anthropology Department
Student Research Award.
Over the years I spent in Florence and Sardinia many people gave me their
friendship and insights. Deepest thanks go to Chris Streit and Massimo Guerrini,
Lorenzo and Caterina Pezzatini, Beppe Lo Russo and Gabriella Bianchini, and
their families. I warmly thank all of my Florentine relatives without whom
people I knew in Florence including Tina and Mario Barsanti, Loretta and my
life would be far less rich and this book would not exist. I thank many Roberto
Cellini, Scilla Cuccaro, Damianos Damiankos, Sandra and Rolando Fossi, Maria
Teresa Traversi and Carlo Guarnieri, Angela Jeannet, Giuseppe Mammarella,
Cinzia and Sergio Meriggi, Maria Luisa and Renato Pezzatini, Samuela Ristori,
Elda Seminara, Dora and Sergio Traversi, and Alessandro and Marta Tozzi. I
thank Prof. Christine Streit Guerrini at the Scuola Interpreti in Florence and Dr.
Paolo Ventura at the Istituto di Urbanistica at the University of Florence for
inviting me to their classes in March 2003, and I thank the following students for
sharing their thoughts with me: Luca Belati, Alice Bellia, Seraina Biscione,
Chiara Ferrari, Elisa Fiorini, Chiara Franzini, Eva Gertzner, Beatrice Giacometti,
Sara Giunchi, Elena Grifoni, Emanuela Lembo, Francesco Molinari, Elena
Molteni, Jessica Nieri, Chiara Pacini, Mariagiulia Bennicelli Pasqualis, Valentina
Pini, Christian Schreinert, Nicoletta Serrais, Silvia Sopranzetti, Caterina Tesi,
and the others who wish to remain anonymous.
ix
Fig. 1 Kinship chart of subjects in 1984, by Brandy Mui, Taylor & Francis, NY
I thank Giovanna Pezzatini for one day in 1973 giving me a dish cloth that I
still have. It was made from an old flour sack inscribed with “Gift from the
People of the United States of America to the People of Italy.” She had saved it
since 1944 when the U.S. government distributed food to the starving Florentines
after the Allied liberation of Florence. The flour sack turned dish cloth that
traveled from the United States to Italy and back again encapsulates the power of
food to create ties that bind. To Italy, I am grateful for the many kindnesses of
strangers, the generosity of friends, and the knowledge that there are many ways
of being.