CucinaBarilla and how to re-define the 'Italian food' system

Italian version below

Sociological theories point out that each system continually renews itself through processes of inclusion/exclusion. On the one hand, elements previously excluded gradually become parts of the system; on the other hand, ex-dominant elements become redundant and slowly disappear. This is certainly true, but there are periods when social systems renovate themselves in deeper and faster ways, and this happens when the system needs a strong re-definition.

I believe that the system that we may call 'Italian food' is going through one of such periods of change. The system has been stereotyped (and idealized) for many years as concerning a kind of food that is totally extraneous to technology, pure, superior, and zero-miles. However, today, Italian food must deal with reality. Big (and also small) companies cannot produce food without technology; the scandal of terra dei fuochi has demonstrated that criminal organizations pollute the fields where it is grown; food from other countries is today more competitive than in the past; and the fairy tale of zero-mile food is losing its appeal. Thus, how to adjourn Italian food to be in line with the times, but without losing its well-known identity?

Barilla, one of the biggest Italian food companies, is taking a new, risky path. It is offering the Italian consumers a new idea of food, called CucinaBarilla. It consists of an oven with an optical reader, given on an extended loan; and of a series of products, called kits, from pizza to cakes, from bread to soups to risotto, sold in packages which also contain an electronic code. When you have the oven and one of the kits at home, you have only to put the electronic code on the package and the reader on the oven near each other. From that moment onwards, the oven knows what to do. Put the product in the oven and it will be ready shortly (according to the time it needs to be cooked).

The idea is certainly new in Italy. Actually, it resembles the scenes of a couple of dystopian science-fiction films, and it sounds like a blasphemy in the church of the Italian 'pure' food. However, the blasphemy is mediated by the ingredients. All the ingredients of these products, in fact, are simple, natural, essential, without colours, preservatives and additives. They perfectly mirror the Italian tradition. Thus, CucinaBarilla puts forward Italian tradition in a science-fiction context.

Will Barilla's attempt succeed? The mix of novelty and tradition is interesting, but it resembles a contrast rather than a combination. Perhaps, a softer match than the opposition tradition/dystopia would have more easily been digested by the Italians, usually conservative in terms of food. In the next months, we will know better. In the meantime, we will certainly see other attempts aiming to renew the system 'Italian food', and certainly I will write about them on this blog.

Molte teorie sociologiche dicono che ogni sistema si rinnova continuamente attraverso processi di inclusione ed esclusione. Da una parte, elementi esclusi in passato vengono accettati come nuovi; dall'altra, elementi che un tempo furono dominanti diventano secondari e poi, passo dopo passo, spariscono. Tutto ciò è certamente vero, ma bisogna anche dire che ci sono periodi in cui i sistemi sociali si rinnovano in maniera più profonda e veloce, quando questi sistemi hanno bisogno di una re-definizione più incisiva.

Credo che il sistema 'cibo italiano' stia attraversando un periodo simile. Il sistema, infatti, è stato stereotipato e idealizzato per anni come basato su cibo estraneo alla tecnologia, puro, superiore e a chilometro zero. Oggi, però, il cibo italiano deve fare i conti con la realtà. Aziende sia grandi che piccole non possono produrre cibo senza tecnologia; lo scandalo della terra dei fuochi ha dimostrato che il crimine organizzato inquina i campi dove i cibi sono coltivati; il cibo prodotto in altri paesi è intanto diventato più competitivo; e la favola del chilometro zero sta perdendo molto del suo fascino. Quindi, come aggiornare il cibo italiano per mettersi a passo con i tempi ma senza perdere la ben nota identità?

Barilla, una delle più grandi aziende alimentari italiane, sta facendo un passo in direzione del nuovo, ma anche un po' rischioso. Sta infatti offrendo ai consumatori italiani una nuova idea di cibo, chiamato CucinaBarilla. Si tratta di un forno con un lettore ottico, concesso in una sorta di comodato d'uso; e di una serie di prodotti, chiamati kit, che vanno dalla pizza alle torte, dal pane alle zuppe al risotto, venduti in delle confezioni che contengono un codice elettronico. Una volta che si ha sia il forno che uno dei prodotti, bisogna solo accostare il codice della confezione al lettore ottico del forno. Da quel momento in poi, il forno sa cosa deve fare. Basterà mettere il prodotto nel forno e il tutto sarà pronto in breve tempo, a secondo del tempo che ci vuole per cucinarlo.

L'idea è sicuramente nuova in Italia. Per la verità, somiglia ad alcune scene di film di fantascienza apocalittici, e suona come una bestemmia nella chiesa del buon cibo italiano. Però attenzione, la bestemmia è mediata dagli ingredienti, che sono semplici, naturali, essenziali, e senza coloranti, conservanti e aromi artificiali: quindi, perfettamente in linea con la tradizione italiana. In pratica, CucinaBarilla propone tradizione italiana in un contesto di fantascienza.

Avrà successo l'iniziativa della Barilla? Il mix di novità e tradizione è interessante, ma somiglia più a un contrasto che a un'accoppiata. Forse, un binomio più dolce e meno stridente dell'opposizione tradizione/fantascienza pessimistica sarebbe stato assimilato più facilmente dagli italiani, che di solito sono conservatori in fatto di cibo. Nei prossimi mesi ne sapremo qualcosa di più. Intanto, assisteremo ad altri tentativi mirati a rinnovare il sistema 'cibo italiano', e sicuramente questo blog darà conto dei più interessanti.

What a Wonderful Gluten-free World!

Italian version below

Imagine that in a day of the early Twentieth Century, a really tired man, called Joe, went to bed after dinner. Just because Joe was so tired, he ate pastina glutinata, that is, gluten-added pasta, a speciality of those times. It was commercialised at the end of the Nineteenth century by Buitoni, one of the most popular Italian food companies. An interesting book by Dario Bressanini and Beatrice Mautino, which challenges many of our food beliefs, and also Bressanini's blog, say that at the beginning pastina glutinata had about 15 percent more gluten that traditional pasta, and that other kinds of pasta glutinata had about 30 percent more of this ingredient.

Also imagine that Joe was so tired that he slept until ten minutes ago. When Joe gets up, he realises that some time has passed, and goes around to shop some food. As he feels still tired, he is in search of pasta or other foods added with gluten, very much gluten, about 30 percent, or perhaps more, because probably food companies, in the meantime, have created foods with 40 or 50 percent of gluten. When Joe asks the employees at the supermarket for gluten-added foods, they look at him as he was crazy. In going around the supermarket, not only does he realise that gluten is not added to food anymore, but he also sees that gluten is taken away from the items of food that naturally contain it. Welcome to the gluten-free world, Joe!

Sixty or seventy years have been sufficient to invert our conception of gluten. We have turned this element from a necessary, strengthening substance to a dangerous ingredient threatening our health. Assuming that gluten has not changed over this period, we must admit that those who have changed are us. What we should understand is which part of the human being has changed: our bodies or our minds?

Some say that it is human body that has changed. The refined flours we continually eat today, in fact, contain less fibre and proteins and, thus, more gluten. We eat much more gluten than our parents and grandparents. We eat too much gluten, and this has made our digestive systems gluten-intolerant.

Others say that gluten-intolerance doesn't really exist (apart from celiac disease, which concerns only a few people), and that it is our mind that has changed our approach to gluten. We increasingly consider food as a kind of medicine, and often find some items of food miraculously benefiting, and others dangerous.

I'm not an expert and don't have the foggiest idea of which of the two theories is the right one. However, as a social researcher, I know that, either it is body or it is mind, marketing (in the forms of advertising, pseudo-informative programmes, unfair scientists, etc), tempts us with its gluten-free products. And I also know that Joe will buy those products very soon.

Immaginate che agli inizi del '900 un uomo molto stanco, chiamiamolo Joe, sia andato a dormire dopo cena. Proprio perché era molto stanco, Joe aveva mangiato la pastina glutinata, una specialità di quegli anni che fu commercializzata alla fine dell' 800 dalla Buitoni. Un bel libro di Dario Bressanini e Beatrice Mautino, che sfida molte delle nostre credenze sul cibo, e anche il blog di Bressanini, ci informano che all'inizio la pastina glutinata aveva circa il 15% in più di glutine rispetto alla pasta tradizionale, mentre altri tipi di pasta glutinata arrivarono ad averne il 30% in più.

Immaginate anche che Joe fosse così stanco che ha dormito fino a dieci minuti fa. Quando si alza, capisce che è passato un bel po' di tempo, e va in giro a cercare qualcosa da mangiare. E proprio perché si sente stanco, cerca pasta o altri cibi addizionati di glutine, molto glutine, circa il 30%, se intanto non ne hanno inventati altri che ne hanno ancora di più.

Quando Joe dice al personale del supermarket che sta cercando prodotti addizionati con glutine, quelli lo guardano come fosse un matto. Allora va in giro per il negozio, e capisce non solo che non si aggiunge più glutine ai cibi, ma anche che il glutine viene tolto ai cibi che lo contengono naturalmente. Benvenuto nel mondo gluten-free, Joe!

Sessanta o settant'anni sono stati sufficienti per invertire la nostra concezione del glutine. Infatti, abbiamo fatto diventare questo elemento da una sostanza necessaria ed energizzante a un ingrediente pericoloso e minaccioso per la nostra salute. Visto che in questo periodo il glutine non è cambiato, dobbiamo ammettere che quelli che siamo cambiati siamo noi. Quello che dovremmo capire è quale parte dell'essere umano è cambiata: il nostro corpo o la nostra mente?

Alcuni dicono che è il corpo ad essere cambiato. Le farine 00 che mangiamo in continuazione oggi, infatti, contengono meno fibre e proteine di quelle integrali che si mangiavano una volta e, quindi, più glutine. Mangiamo più glutine dei nostri genitori e dei nostri nonni, troppo per il nostro corpo, e questo ha reso il nostro apparato digerente intollerante al glutine.

Altri dicono che l'intolleranza al glutine non esiste, e che è la nostra mente ad essere cambiata. Sempre più consideriamo il cibo come una medicina, e spesso cataloghiamo alcuni cibi come dei toccasana e altri come pericolosi.

Non sono un esperto, e non ho idea di quale delle due teorie sia quella vera. Ma come studioso di scienze sociali so che, corpo o mente, il marketing, sotto forma di pubblicità, media pseudo informativi, scienziati scorretti, ecc., approfitta di tutto questo e ci tenta con i suoi prodotti gluten-free. E so che anche Joe, molto presto, comprerà quei prodotti.

Beyond Factory Farming: The Problem of Eating Animals

Italian version below

A recent survey on meat consumption has confirmed that in Italy eating meat has been decreasing significantly. According to this survey, eight Italians out of 100 have banned meat from their diet. More specifically, 7 percent of the Italians define themselves as vegetarians, and 1 percent consider themselves as vegans. But also those who eat meat have reduced its consumption. For the first time, Italian families spend more money on fruit and vegetables than on any other category of food, while before 2015 this dominant position had belonged to meat. Another survey has found that from 2000 to 2014 meat consumption in Italy passed from 82.7 to 78.2 kilos per person.

What do these numbers say? How to explain them? When I saw and combined the results of these surveys, the first reason that came to my mind was the economic crisis. It's really simple, I thought. People don't have money, and meat is one of the most expensive items of food. As a result, people consume less meat and more affordable foods, such as fruit and vegetables, in order to spend less.

This explanation would be right if we didn't take into account the result of a third survey, focusing on organic food in Italy. This survey says that organic food consumption increased by 11 percent in 2014 and by 19 percent in 2015. As organic food is much more expensive than the other foods, it is evident that Italian people didn't want to save money while buying food in 2014 and 2015. Simply, they preferred fruit and vegetables to meat.

However, even if we believed that the reason for reduced meat consumption is linked to money, we must assume that, in wanting to save money, Italian people preferred to consume less meat, and to spend what they saved on organic food. Again, it is clear that meat is losing its dominant position at the Italian table. Incidentally, the crisis of meat is bitterly concrete and not painless. The first survey I mentioned above also states that in the last 5 years, 12.000 farms producing meat have closed down and that 180.000 people risk losing their jobs.

Importantly, what's happening in Italy is also happening in other European countries. Developing countries, instead, eat more meat every year, while other countries such as USA and Canada are quite stable. Meat crisis seems to me a kind of illness of old and developed communities. However, I don't see it as an economic illness. Rather, the problem is cultural.

Many experts say that factory farming is the main reason for this decrease. Animals considered as things and exploited for their entire lives as objects providing meat, and related food security issues have suggested consuming less meat, they say.

This is probably true. However, I would suggest another, broader, reason. For me, apart from factory farming, the decline of meat should also be combined with the new way we look at animals: not only the way we raise and kill them, but also the role we give them in the world, and our relationships to them.

Certainly, the way we raise and kill animals in huge farms suggests reducing meat consumption. But also the simple fact that eating meat means 'eating an animal' plays its role. My point is that meat consumption would decline even if meat was produced with more humane methods and more respectful approaches. I know many people who have banned or reduced meat independently from where meat comes from and how animals were raised and killed. For me, it's the concept of 'eating an animal' that many people feel problematic today and that will increasingly be rediscussed in the near future.

Un recente sondaggio ha confermato che il consumo di carne in Italia è in forte calo. In sostanza, 8 italiani su cento non la mangiano più. Il 7% degli italiani si definisce vegetariano, e l'1% vegano. Ma anche chi continua a mangiare carne ne mangia meno. Per la prima volta, la categoria di cibo per cui gli italiani spendono di più è frutta e verdura, mentre prima del 2015 la prima in classifica era la carne. Un altro sondaggio ha provato che dal 2000 al 2014 in Italia il consumo di carne pro capite è passato da 82.7 a 78.2 chili.

Cosa significano questi numeri? La prima cosa che ho pensato quando ho visto i risultati di entrambi i sondaggi è stato che il problema è economico. E' molto semplice, mi sono detto, la gente non ha più soldi, e la carne è il cibo più caro. Quindi, si consuma meno carne e si comprano cibi meno costosi come frutta e verdura, per risparmiare.

Questa lettura potrebbe anche essere giusta se non prendessimo in considerazione un terzo sondaggio, questa volta sul cibo biologico. Questo sondaggio ci dice che il consumo di cibo biologico è aumentato dell'11% nel 2014 e del 19% nel 2015. Visto che il cibo biologico è molto caro, questo significa che gli italiani non hanno voluto risparmiare in quanto a cibo nel 2014 e 2015. Semplicemente, hanno preferito frutta e verdura alla carne.

Ma se anche volessimo credere alla motivazione economica, dobbiamo ammettere che, volendo risparmiare, gli italiani hanno preferito sacrificare la carne e reinvestire almeno parte dei soldi risparmiati in cibo biologico. Di nuovo, questo significa che la carne sta perdendo quella posizione dominante che aveva sempre avuto in passato sulla tavola degli italiani. Tra l'altro, la crisi della carne è maledettamente concreta e per niente indolore: il primo sondaggio che ho citato ha infatti anche fatto emergere che negli ultimi 5 anni  ben 12.000 stabilimenti che producevano carne hanno chiuso e che 180.000 persone sono a rischio disoccupazione.

Questo trend sta anche caratterizzando altri paesi europei. I paesi in via di sviluppo, invece, consumano ogni anno più carne e altri paese come USA e Canada hanno un andamento stabile. Personalmente, la crisi della carne mi sembra sempre di più una specie di malattia dei popoli più antichi e sviluppati. Ma questa malattia, secondo me, non è economica, ma culturale.

Molti esperti dicono che la causa principale di questa riduzione dei consumi è l'allevamento industriale. Il fatto di considerare gli animali come oggetti e di sfruttarli per tutta la loro breve vita come macchine che forniscono carne, e i conseguenti problemi di salute, secondo loro, hanno suggerito di consumare meno carne.

Questo è vero, probabilmente. Ma, io suggerirei anche un'altra ragione più ampia. Secondo me, oltre agli allevamenti industriali, il declino della carne dovrebbe anche essere messo in relazione al modo in cui oggi consideriamo gli animali. Non solo come li alleviamo e uccidiamo, ma come concepiamo la loro presenza in questo mondo e il rapporto che noi dovremmo avere con loro. Sicuramente l'allevamento industriale suggerisce di consumare meno carne. Ma secondo me anche il fatto che mangiare carne significa 'mangiare un animale' ha il suo peso. Credo che anche se la carne fosse prodotta in maniera più umana e rispettosa degli animali, il consumo di carne diminuirebbe in ogni caso. Le persone mangerebbero meno carne indipendentemente dalla provenienza della stessa. Secondo me, infatti, è il concetto di 'mangiare un animale' che molta gente trova oggi problematico, e che sarà ridiscusso sempre di più nell'immediato futuro.

The Social Construction of 'Good Food'

By going around Europe, I'm often struck by the differences between the shops selling 'good food' in various countries. For example, Natura Sì and Holland & Barrett. Natura Sì is one of the most popular Italian supermarket chains of good food, or at least of what good food means in Italy. Holland & Barrett is the British provider of 'good food' par excellence.

In Natura Sì, everything relates to Nature, starting from the name of the chain. Advertisements, food packaging, furniture and the names of the products continually remind the consumer of the fact that food comes from Nature, and that Culture (meant as human intervention) rarely counts. 

Holland and Barrett's idea of 'good food', instead, is quite different. Each shop sells two kinds of food: the first is similar to the food sold by Natura Sì, but it does not have the same approach to naturalness. A couple of months ago, for example, I wanted to buy some cereals (spelt, millet, etc) but I didn't find the geographic origins of those products on the label. When I asked the clerk, he answered: “... China ... India ... or something like that...”

I laughed while imagining the same scene in Italy. Probably the customer would have sent a ferocious letter to newspapers and TV programmes, and the clerk would have been fired in a couple of days. (Incidentally, not knowing where those products came from, I didn't buy them). The same approach may be found on the respective websites. For example, Natura Sì declares the geographic origins of the cereals, while Holland & Barrett does not. In short, being aware of the geographic origins of an item of food is a relevant part of the Italian notion of 'good food', while it adds little to the British meaning of the term.

However, what is really surprising is the second part of each Holland & Barrett shop, selling plastic pots of proteins, vitamins, hydrolysed collagen, and other products which underline, declare and exalt the fact that good food is made by humans, and that Nature only provides the raw ingredients. It is technology, instead, that turns natural ingredients into something good. It is in this part of the shop that the British notion of 'eating well' contrasts with the Italian one. In Italy, in fact, technology is seen as the worst food's enemy, and companies often hide the industrial process necessary to produce many items of food. In their advertisements, Italian food companies invent natural scenarios that nothing have to do with those foods, as they perfectly know that a natural frame will help to sell the picture.

In conclusion, I think that 'good food' is a concept composed of two parts. The first is scientific, as we perfectly know that some foods damage our bodies. The second part is instead a social construction, and it changes according to where we are. What is interesting, for me, is to see how one part overwhelms the other according to the social and cultural context. As is said in the title of a wonderful book by David Bell and Gill Valentine, which contributed to shaping my passion for food culture, 'We are where we eat'.

The Strange Case of the Book of the Ingredients

(Find below the Italian version)

During this week, I spent some time visiting six Italian supermarkets in Milan and Venice and trying to shed light on the strange case of the book of the ingredients. As said in a previous post, for the last few years, in many Italian (but also European) supermarkets, the ingredients have disappeared from the labels of bread, meat and other products packaged by the retailers. These labels only show the mysterious writing: “Ingredients: See the book of the ingredients”. As said in the previous post, the book of the ingredients is usually on the other side of the supermarket, in places as mysterious as the ingredients of bread and meat.

This week I have gone further, and have asked some employees why this happens. Most of them immediately showed surprise and embarrassment, and all of them called their managers. All the managers said roughly the same thing: we resort to the book of the ingredients when the ingredients and the allergens are too many. As a recent law forces us to also put allergens on the labels, it often happens that the list would be really long, and we would need a bigger label. The law allows us to turn to the book of the ingredients, and we frequently choose this option.

This is the case in which a law that is certainly right worsens things. In fact, we have the right to know both the ingredients and the allergens of the foods we buy, no doubt. However, the result is that now the great majority of people ignore both, the ingredients and the allergens. In fact, in all of the cases I was the only person who read the book, no one else was interested in it while I was in these supermarkets.

How to solve this problem? I think that bigger labels (and font sizes) would be the easiest way. However, if supermarkets didn't want to do this, allergens could remain in the books, and ingredients could appear on the labels again, as they are of interest for more people.

Actually, this is only a part of the problem. By looking at the books of the ingredients, in fact, I also noticed that sometimes ingredients and allergens are only a few, and labels could contain them. The real problem is that some of these ingredients are somehow critical, such as palm oil, lard and other elements that discourage consumers for health or calorie-related reasons. Thus, the book of the ingredients has become a precious tool to sell products that people wouldn't buy.

In conclusion, before the law people ignored the allergens, but at least they knew the ingredients of the food they bought; after the (right) law, they ignore both the allergens and the ingredients. I strongly believe that something should change.

Versione in italiano

Durante questa settimana sono andato in sei supermercati di Milano e Venezia, per cercare di capire qualcosa dello strano caso del libro degli ingredienti. Come ho già scritto in un post precedente, da qualche anno in molti supermercati italiani, ma anche europei, gli ingredienti sono scomparsi dalle etichette di pane, carne e altri prodotti confezionati dagli stessi supermercati. Le etichette di questi prodotti contengono solo una scritta misteriosa: “Ingredienti: Vedi il libro degli ingredienti”. Come detto nel post precedente, il libro di solito si trova dall'altra parte del supermercato, in posti misteriosi almeno quanto gli ingredienti di pane e carne.

Questa settimana sono andato avanti, e ho chiesto a qualche impiegato come mai i supermercati fanno questa scelta. Molti di loro hanno mostrato sorpresa e imbarazzo, e tutti loro hanno chiamato i loro capi. Tutti i manager hanno detto più o meno la stessa cosa: usiamo il libro degli ingredienti quando gli ingredienti e gli allergeni sono troppi. Poiché una legge recente ci obbliga a scrivere gli allergeni sull'etichetta, spesso accade che la lista sarebbe troppo lunga, e così avremmo bisogno di un'etichetta più grande. La legge ci consente di ricorrere al libro, e noi spesso lo facciamo.

Si tratta di un caso interessante, perché una legge giusta ha peggiorato le cose. Infatti, noi abbiamo tutto il diritto di conoscere sia gli ingredienti che gli allergeni contenuti nel cibo che compriamo, su questo non c'è dubbio. Ma il risultato è che oggi la grande maggioranza delle persone ignora sia gli ingredienti che gli allergeni. Infatti, ogni volta che ero al supermercato, sono sempre stato l'unica persona a chiedere di leggere il libro, nessun altro ne era minimamente interessato.

Come risolvere il problema? Intanto credo che etichette (e caratteri) più grandi sarebbero la soluzione più facile. Ma se i supermercati si opponessero a questa soluzione, gli allergeni potrebbero restare nel libro, mentre gli ingredienti potrebbero tornare sulle etichette, visto che interessano più persone.

Comunque, in verità, questa è solo una piccola parte del problema. Leggendo i libri degli ingredienti, infatti, ho anche notato che a volte gli ingredienti e gli allergeni erano pochi, e che le etichette sarebbero state sufficientemente grandi a contenerli. Il vero nodo è che alcuni di questi ingredienti sono, per così dire, problematici, come ad esempio l'olio di palma, lo strutto e altri nomi che di solito scoraggiano i consumatori per problemi nutrizionali o sanitari. Quindi, il libro degli ingredienti diventa uno strumento per vendere prodotti che altrimenti la gente non comprerebbe.

In definitiva, prima della legge le persone ignoravano gli allergeni ma almeno conoscevano gli ingredienti del cibo che compravano; dopo la legge (che ripetiamo, è giusta), la gente ignora sia gli allergeni che gli ingredienti. Credo davvero che qualcosa andrebbe cambiata.

New Questions for Local Food Companies

In another post of this blog, I wrote about the critiques surrounding the zero-miles food theory. To sum up, the problem is that today people travel around the world and live big parts of their lives far from their birthplaces much more than in the past. All of this has caused displacement, and food from birthplaces is the easiest and best way of curing distress. That's why Italian people living in London don't buy zero-miles English food, but lots-of-miles pasta and Parmigiano. And the same happens to the Indians living in Europe, the Egyptians in the US, and so on. 

In addition, much research has demonstrated that sometimes importing food from other countries is less polluting than growing food at home. Finally, many local companies are selling their products on the internet globally, sending local foods to other countries and thus contradicting the basic rule of the theory. Interestingly, those who buy this local food are both people suffering with food nostalgia and people who have nothing to do with the geographic origins of that food. As a result, the idea of eating food coming from the same area where one lives is still fascinating in theory, but is becoming less feasible in practice.

If we assume that the zero food miles theory is in difficulty, we must also assume that the companies producing and selling local food have a problem. In fact, these companies have often based their communication on the fact that they are a zero food miles company. Now that the theory is less fascinating, new questions arise. Why do people buy local food? How should local food companies promote their products?

The problem is already here, and some of these companies are looking for new strategies. Interestingly, Italian national channels are broadcasting the commercial of mozzarella Francia, a local brand which is very popular in the area surrounding Rome. This brand has often promoted its products by underlining its local production process. The new commercial, instead, ignores the local character of the brand, which is now available in many Italian regions and is in fact promoted on national channels. The commercial focuses on the fact that this mozzarella doesn't contain citric acid and other ingredients extraneous to mozzarella's traditional recipe, only containing milk, salt and rennet. Thus, the commercial seems to say: “Wherever you live and were born, buy it because it's local, and thus it's good”

I strongly believe that local food will be increasingly successful in the near future. However, what I also believe is that the people who will buy it will live far from the region where that food has been produced. They will buy it either for nostalgia or because they simply like it., because it's better than the global counterpart By contrast, local foods will decreasingly be bought as it is produced close to home. In short, the famous lardo di Colonnata will be more successful out of than in Colonnata.

Zero Food Miles: Theory and Practice

Zero miles (or zero kilometres) is a really fascinating food theory. It asserts that we should consume food grown and marketed close to the place where we live. By doing so, we avoid food that travels for many miles by flight, ship, truck and other polluting means of transport. Apart from pollution, zero miles also allows us to eat fresher food which does not contain preservatives and other ingredients that threatens health, taste and nutritional values.

As often happens, good theories fail when they are turned into practice. First of all, it has been demonstrated that the environmental relevance of zero miles does not apply to everywhere. In the northern part of Britain, for example, growing fruit and vegetables needs energy-consuming, heated-up greenhouses, as the weather does not permit the natural growing of some vegetables. A recent research has demonstrated that importing products from Spain pollutes less than growing them in the central and northern part of Britain. Thus, the first point is that zero miles does not guarantee environmental advantage on some parts of the planet.

However, the real problem with zero miles is cultural. In fact, in this era more than in any other, people travel and live for long periods far from their original places, often for their entire lives. In these new places, they build new lives, establish new relationships and do things that they would have never done at their original homes. Yet, they often feel the need not to lose their roots, and consuming foods from their birthplaces is the easiest and best way to retrieve those roots.

My Italian friends living in London theoretically support zero kilometres, but their refrigerators and kitchen shelves are full of Parmigiano Reggiano, authentic Italian pasta and mozzarella, extra-virgin olive oil authentically produced in Italy and an array of Italian foods much more various than those I have in Italy. They find them in the most popular supermarkets in London, which import all that food from Italy ignoring the zero miles theory. Questioned by me, my friends have said that they would never replace Parmigiano Reggiano with British cheese, Italian pasta with British pasta, and so on. Clearly, those products make them feel at home. Apart from their wonderful taste, those foods have the function of retrieving my friends' roots. The same happens to the other Italians who have emigrated everywhere, and to the Indians, Egyptians, Bulgarians and so on that have built new lives far from their birthplaces.

Food is a magician. It conveys memories, emotions, scents and people that have been important in our past. This is not theory, but everyday life. A useful and effective theory such as zero miles cannot keep up with the strength of the flood of emotions and nostalgia that sometimes gets into our lives without asking permission. It is probably disputable, but when at the crossroads where we will have to choose between correctness and emotions, we will more often give up our environmental awareness and take the road of the taste of our past.

Cosa ci insegnano Slow Food e il Salone del Gusto 2016

Spesso criticato per il suo conservatorismo e per la sua attenzione al passato più che al presente o al futuro, Slow Food quest'anno ha dato a tutti una bella lezione, dimostrando di capire i trend sociali e culturali emergenti meglio di chiunque altro.

Sociologi ed esperti di fenomeni culturali, si veda ad esempio questo bel libro di Bonomi,Masiero e Della Puppa, ci spiegano come oggi ogni cosa stia cambiando e come la società digitale comporti nuovi modi di produzione, commercializzazione, consumo e comunicazione. Questi studiosi ci dicono che il vecchio sistema lineare di produzione, ma anche di scambio sociale, sta lasciando il posto a un sistema 'circolare'. Tutto questo si traduce nella scomparsa di un unico 'emittente', di una fonte di sapere affidabile a cui tutti si rivolgono. Le fonti, oggi, ognuno se le sceglie a suo piacimento, non solo costruendo reti di sapere con le mille fonti che la tecnologia e internet mettono a disposizione, ma anche partecipando attivamente ad esse, diventando produttore di sapere in prima persona.

Purtroppo, il mondo del cibo, soprattutto in Italia, sembra impermeabile a questo cambio di paradigma e continua a cullarsi su allori che, se non adeguati al presente e non proiettati verso il futuro, si dissolveranno nel giro di qualche anno.

Un po' a sorpresa, è stato Slow Food a muoversi con coraggio. L'edizione 2016 di Terramadre Salone del Gusto è stata infatti totalmente diversa dalle diciannove precedenti. La rassegna non si è più tenuta al Lingotto, 'luogo unico del sapere' dove negli anni scorsi tutti andavano a 'imparare' qualcosa in fatto di cibo. L'evento è invece diventato un happening diffuso in tutta la città di Torino. Il Parco del Valentino, via Roma, piazza San Carlo, il Borgo Medievale, la Reggia di Venaria, il Teatro Carignano, Palazzo Reale, il quartiere multietnico di San Salvario e molte altre zone della città sono diventate piccole fonti di sapere che ogni visitatore poteva inserire nel proprio personale percorso. Insomma, ogni visitatore ha potuto costruire un proprio network di saperi attraverso la città, nella maniera teorizzata dal libro di Masiero & C. In più, molti visitatori hanno anche preso parte all'evento in maniera attiva, grazie a workshop e laboratori in cui hanno potuto misurare lo stato del proprio rapporto con il cibo.

Insomma, mentre i visitatori del lingotto erano ancora 'consumatori' o ancora peggio 'spettatori' all'interno dei padiglioni fieristici, i visitatori del Salone diffuso si sono sentiti qualcos'altro. Non hanno pagato il biglietto d'ingresso (a parte qualche iniziativa speciale) e hanno partecipato in maniera più attiva (ma sul ruolo attivo dei visitatori si può fare molto di più).

Slow Food ha, ancora una volta, aperto una strada. Adesso tocca agli altri capire che anche il cibo nei prossimi anni cambierà, e cambierà il modo in cui gli esseri umani lo producono, lo lavorano, lo consumano, lo comunicano e, cosa sempre più importante, lo smaltiscono. Dimentichiamo le vecchie modalità lineari, e prepariamoci tutti ad avere a che fare con logiche di rete, ruolo attivo del consumatore, circolarità e benessere sociale. Il nuovo è già qui, prendiamo tutti esempio dal Salone del Gusto 2016 e, perchè no, facciamo ancora di più.

Child Obesity: No Food Culture is Safe

According to recent news, France also now presents a high rate of child obesity. This has probably not surprised French people, but has certainly challenged the Anglo-Saxon idea that the French, and the Mediterraneans in general, eat healthy and light food, while the British and the American diets are richer in fats and sugar. This is probably true, but it is equally evident that for the last fifteen or twenty years the two approaches to food have become closer to each other.

In fact, Anglo-Saxon food is still fattier, saltier and sweeter, and richer in additives, colours and preservatives. But today processed and preserved foods are also massively sold in countries such as France, Greece and Italy, usually associated with an uniforming Mediterranean diet. Actually, a unique Mediterranean diet does not exist, as what people eat in France differs greatly from what the Greeks or Italians do. Paradoxically, these three diets are more similar today, thanks to the global food coming from big retailers, than in the past, when these three peoples used to eat more traditional food.

The common traits of the Mediterranean diet (the abundance of vegetables and fish, a balanced consumption of meat and sweets, the frequent usage of olive oil, etc.) guaranteed lower rates of obesity for years. Today this difference is fading, and Mediterranean countries are also affected by continuously growing rates of obesity and child obesity, although less than Anglo-Saxon and North European countries.

The news is bad, but it also has good potentialities. The fact that we have all the same problem, and that no one may state a supposedly greater attention to health, means that it's time to do something all together. France is following England in taxing junk food. Perhaps, this may provide some good results, but it also has the weakness of only targeting the poor. Other measures may offer a less classist approach and perhaps better results. For example, labelling products by also visually highlighting the risky ingredients could be a good idea. In the past, some countries have experimented with traffic lights, geometric shapes, colours and other strategies to visualise the unhealthiness of a product.

In the meantime, it should be enough to fix bad policies that worsened in the recent past. For example, in Italy, Britain and other countries, the products packaged by the supermarkets such as bread and meat don't have to show their ingredients on their labels. Customers must look for 'the book of the ingredients', usually on the other side of a big supermarket or lost somewhere; otherwise, they cannot know whether the bread they want contains lard or the meat they are buying is added to with nitrite. Regulating on such a thing would be a first signal demonstrating interest in contrasting unhealthy food.

Viva il Cibo Made in Italy?

Carlo Petrini, fondatore di Slow Food, e Oscar Farinetti, fondatore di Eataly, hanno recentemente chiesto che le etichette del cibo in vendita nei supermercati in Italia riportino anche i paesi da cui gli ingredienti sono stati importati. Questo in reazione alle polemiche scoppiate quando si è scoperto che Eataly, supermercato di buon cibo 'made in Italy', vende 'pasta italiana' fatta con grano importato dal Canada e da altri paesi.

Tutto questo è sacrosanto, perchè più sappiamo del cibo che mangiamo e meglio è. Però colpisce anche che tutta l'attenzione si concentri sull'origine geografica degli ingredienti, che senza dubbio è importante ma non è l'unico problema. Per esempio, da qualche tempo, la carne e il pane confezionati dagli stessi supermercati che poi li vendono non hanno più gli ingredienti sull'etichetta. Spariti. Per trovarli bisogna andare a leggersi il 'libro degli ingredienti', che di solito si trova dall'altra parte del supermercato, che devi chiedere a qualcuno del personale o che, come mi è capitato in Inghilterra, dove vige la stessa regola, non si trova.

La sparizione degli ingredienti non ha suscitato le stesse polemiche della sparizione della loro origine geografica, ma è ugualmente, se non maggiormente, importante. Le carni, specialmente quelle lavorate come salsiccia, hamburger e wurstel, contengono spesso nitriti e altre sostanze giudicate in grado di causare, o almeno incoraggiare, alcune malattie. Se poi la carne coi nitriti venga dalla Germania o sia made in Italy a me personalmente sembra un problema minore. Lo stesso accade col pane, che a volte contiene strutto o altri grassi animali che sono più dannosi di quelli vegetali. Ma niente, il problema più importante sembra quello della provenienza, come se il fatto di essere italiano desse al cibo una patente di assoluta purezza e genuinità.

Francamente, a me non sembra, anche alla luce dei continui allarmi che riguardano il nostro cibo. Personalmente, tra una pasta fatta con grano canadese e una prodotta con grano della terra dei fuochi, preferirei la prima. E questo cavalcare il cibo made in Italy a tutti i costi, alla fine, mi sembra un modo semplice e a costo zero per rinfocolare l'identità italiana, in crisi non certo per colpa del grano canadese.

Hands off Suspended Coffee!

Il caffè sospeso was an Italian philanthropic practice which was really popular in the first part of the twentieth century, especially in Naples. The practice was really simple and consisted of buying one-more coffee than the coffees people actually needed. A lone person used to ask for two coffees, a couple for three, etc., telling the barista that one coffee was sospeso, suspended. The suspended coffee was momentarily not served, but saved for a poor person who would enter the bar soon. Obviously, il caffè sospeso was really popular with the Neapolitan homeless people, who used to enter the bars asking if, by chance, there was a caffè sospeso.

In Italy, this practice is still present, but has gradually declined in popularity. However, when it was supposed that we would never buy one-more coffee for the rest of our lives, suddenly suspended coffee became popular again. Not in Italy (at least at first), and not at the old bars and cafes, but thanks to charities and big cafe chains. In many famous cafes belonging to these chains, in fact, you can buy one-more coffee. Your name will be written on a blackboard that all the customers will see and the money you have given for one-more coffee will be passed onto a charity, which will use it to buy a coffee for a needy person.

It's quite easy to understand that the name is the same, but what today is called suspended coffee is something very different from il caffè sospeso. In one word, what has become lost is spontaneity. While in the past the bar mediated between the donor and the receiver, now the company encourages giving in a commercial context. On many Facebook pages, the company praises the donors, to persuade other people to do the same. Thus, the company uses this practice to attract new customers, to whom it promises praises. Thus, today suspended coffee is only a commercial strategy.

Moreover, spontaneity is also lost from the point of view of the receiver. In fact while in the past the needy person required to play an active role, deciding to enter the bar and ask for a suspended coffee, today it is the charity (or the company) that decides who is the lucky person. Other times, even more different from the original, one suspended coffee is activated automatically, each time a coffee is sold. Again, it is only a strategy to sell more.

What to say? Certainly giving and receiving has changed over the last thirty or forty years, and today the old mechanism of il caffè sospeso would be considered paternalistic. In fact, today the sharing economy offers us more adequate ways of giving. Moreover, many people might consider upsetting to see a homeless person into the bar. But what to do with the old practices? I would like that old habits such as il caffè sospeso disappear, becoming material for historians. Seeing their name exploited, and them turned into a further mechanism to make money, instead, is quite upsetting.

How Much is a Kilo of Identity?

Recently, at a local-organic-fair food market my attention was drawn by a little jar of sauce containing sardines. The man selling it was also the producer, and told me that those jars came from Campania, the Italian region where this product is “almost a religion”. When I asked how much, without any shame he answered '15 Euros' (about £12 and $16). When I instinctively asked why 15 euros, he answered: 'Because this is identity'. “This is pasta sauce!”, I objected, but it was too late. Starring blankly, the producer was explaining the entire production process, talking about Campanian families producing it with almost religious rituals, etc., and the conclusion was the undoubted link between high price and identity.

No one can exclude that food shapes who we are, but this has nothing to do with the price of a jar of pasta sauce. Instead, I believe that the high price of many organic foods has to do with frauds. Frauds regarding organic and local foods are growing every day. Not only do these foods cost insensately more than the other products, but also many foods sold as organic are actually industrially processed. Why are frauds growing around organic food?

Food cheaters rule where the direct link between people and food origins is broken, and a gap has to be bridged. Industrial food has broken this link, and in fact we know nothing about what we eat. As magicians, organic food producers promise us that by eating their foods we will find what we have lost. So, a jar of pasta sauce may miraculously give us the illusion that we are bridging this gap. Actually, this is not true. What is true, instead, is that a supposed identity is sold as a product, also at an expensive price, and people are eager to buy it to heal the wounds of consumerist society. But it's a paradox, because you can't recover from consumerism by remaining in the same logic. Instead, this system is only a further attempt of consumerism to make money. People who are not targeted by the mainstream market, are involved with an apparently different mechanism, actually working the same way.

What to do, then? Is our destiny already established and there is no chance of liberation? Whatever we do, are we condemned into the hell of capitalism, as many pessimistic sociologists say? I don't think so. Only, we should look at phenomena occurring out of the logic of consumerism. They are often hidden and ignored by mainstream media, but they do exist. One of them is the Italian GAS (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale). They will be the topic of one of my next posts, as they deserve more space than the end of a post. They have been surviving in Italy for twenty years, even though they have never be come popular. But they are there, and this reassures me.

The Mystery of Fracosta

A couple of days ago, while reading the menu of an Italian restaurant, I bumped into the word fracosta, which I'd never heard before. Fracosta was on the page of meat dishes, and I supposed that it was the part between the ribs, as fra in Italian means between, and costa means rib. Actually, things are not that simple. The meat producer Stefano Magini says in fact that fracosta is the neck of the bovine. The Carrefour website explains that it is sottocollo, that is, the part under the neck. The glorious Treccani vocabulary candidly admits that actually fracosta refers to various bovine cuts, such as entrecôte and shoulder. Garzanti vocabulary, however, says that it also means 'steak' in general.



I might go on, citing sources giving fracosta whatever meaning, but what is interesting is to try to understand why, if at a restaurant you take fracosta, you don't know what you eat. If we called meat cuts with their real names, fracosta probably wouldn't exist, or at least it would only refer to the parts between the ribs. In the other cases, we would eat 'neck', 'shoulder', and so on.



It is evident that when it comes to eating we have been tending to replace the physical parts of the animal with other, confusing names. Again in Italy, chicken legs are now called fusi, which is not a part of the body, but means 'oval form', the form of the chicken legs. In English, the animals change their names when they are on a plate. The pig becomes pork, the cow becomes beef, the deer turns into venison, etc. At the table, we detach the animal from what we eat, and hide the animal origins of meat.

 

 Actually, the table has only been the last stage of a long, historical process. In the 1930s and 1940s, slaughterhouses were institutional places in the city centres. All the city dwellers saw the animals enter these buildings and knew perfectly well what happened to them inside. Similarly, in the 1970s in Italy, Britain and many other countries, especially in the small towns, the butchers' shops were full of hanging dead animals, and the customers considered this a sort of guarantee of the quality of the meat they were buying. Today, slaughterhouses are non-places hidden on the outskirts of the cities. No-one sees the animals enter and, even, what happens there (the animal killing) is shown to us by alternative documentaries, while mainstream media totally cover up the scene. Likewise, butchers' shops are clean places in which we can hardly see an animal with the head, legs, etc. We don't want to see where meat come from.

I'm not a vegetarian, and eat meat once or twice a month. However, I can see that also we meat eaters are every day more concerned with the concept of eating an animal. It has been a gradual process, a matter of generation. My grandparents didn't consider eating meat 'a problem', as meat was an item of food like the others. Among my parents' friends, there were some people concerned with eating an animal. I have many friends who are vegetarians, and also many meat eaters cannot help thinking that eating an animal is different from eating a carrot. Many of my students are vegetarians, and almost all of them consider eating an animal a problematic issue.

In the end, fracosta and fusi are only two small clues of a bigger and very complex process that interests me and that will be a frequent topic of this blog. In the next weeks I will go back to this issue and also to those who decidedly oppose this process. But each trend, we know, has its counter processes.