Gastronazionalismo: Why did Europe become indegistible? – Michele Fino e Anna Claudia Cecconi
Event cancelled
- IN ENGLISH
- AULA MAGNA
- TIME: 5,30 pm – 7pm
Michele Antonio Fino and Anna Claudia Cecconi’s new book, Gastronazionalismo, calls into question a series of widespread attitudes that are considered harmless, if not positive, and in any case folkloric and therefore trivial.
The book instead takes a critical view of chauvinism, creeping racism and the surreptitious assertion of the superiority of one people over another through the distorting lens of cooking and gastronomic heritage in general. It is rarely a good idea to generalize about groups of people, attributing virtues, defects, vices and faults to them.
According to Fino and Cecconi, “gastronationalism” is nothing more than the apparently acceptable face of a suprematism that we no longer tolerate in other areas of civilized life because it is not compatible with the contemporary idea of civilization.
This message—that we cannot tolerate discrimination and chauvinism even with regard to dishes and recipes—is joined by further specific reflections: Why do we need a food identity so much in a world where we enjoy constant change and feeling completely free? How important is the heritagization of gastronomic culture in the process of affirming nationalistic and chauvinistic rhetoric? Who profits from it and at what cost to the rest of us? How should Europe have behaved—and in some cases it has—to prevent food from becoming a source of bitter contention and division instead of a privileged medium for encounters between cultures?
Gastronazionalismo is packed with politics, not low but high, aiming to restore a fundamental historical role to this noble art: the construction and maintenance of a common home.
For more information, click here for reviews of the book (in Italian):
- https://cookinc.it/un-libro-
spiega-che-cose-il- gastronazionalismo-e-perche- fa-male-allitalia/ - https://vinoestoria.wordpress.
com/2021/09/28/ gastronazionalismo-una- lettura/ - https://www.wellmagazine.it/
food-beverage/ gastronazionalismo- valorizzare-lenogastronomia- del-territorio-in-maniera- autentica/
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