A hungry columnist does some seasonal research
, there is sometimes more to European grub than meets the palate.. Italy’s now-ubiquitous bread is paraded as a timeless Italian classic, perhaps once baked in the earthen ovens of ancient Rome. In fact the elongated loaf was devised in 1982 by Italian bakers trying to fend off the French baguette. Belgian beers top global league tables, known for their alcohol content, which can exceed that of wine.
Governments trying to nudge the populace towards new foods are nothing new. The potato went from South American curio to European favourite thanks in part to 18th-century French efforts to diversify away from wheat. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, its keenest promoter, stationed armed guards around a potato patch to make it seem valuable and removed them at night so that peasants would steal and plant the tubers.
Cookbooks, those archives of countries’ cuisines, first became popular in the latter 19th century, not coincidentally a golden era of European nation-building. For what forges a people into a nation? Some will say allegiance to a flag, a shared language or currency. Yet Italians are likely to have stronger feelings about how to cook pasta than about the symbols on their banknotes. The mouth and the heart are connected like no other organs.
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