|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Small Worlds and Real Things
| Article
# : |
20208 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1992 |
4,712 Words |
| Author
: |
Lincoln Allison
Lincoln Allison is senior lecturer of politics at the
University of Warwich in England. He is author of A Journey
Quite Different: Collected Walks, Manchester University Press
(1988). |
There was a time when you would have gone to Hamburg if you wanted a hamburger; recent editions of the Oxford English Dictionary have still defined it as the Hamburg steak, "chopped steak usually cooked or eaten with onions; kind of sausage." At that time, if you were visiting Bologna, as your train drew into the station there, you might have salivated in anticipation of the prospect of the unfamiliar delight of bolognese sauce.
That time is not long gone; it is within the memories of those who are far from old. But it seems very far-gone in the late twentieth century when McDonald's alone sells billions of what used to be one of Europe's more obscure and mediocre regional dishes and sells them in every part of the world. Nor are there many places left on the globe where you could not find some sort of an attempt at a spaghetti bolognese.
It is possible to date with reasonable accuracy the change from the old days to the new. In 1958 there was a massive and irreversible shift from the boat to the airplane in transatlantic journeys, beginning the era of mass American tourism in Europe. The days of the "jet set" were gone; "Europe on $5 a day," as it then was, had arrived. The same years began a period of expansion of English tourism in which there was a 1,000 percent increase in the number of people going abroad over four years. In 1957 the market was still dominated by the upper middle class motoring holiday. By 1962 the "package" holiday to Majorca was the norm. In the wake of this increase in travel came a massive importation of exotic foods, clothes, and ideas.
Consider the fate of pizza in this period. "Europe is about pizza" says Luigi Barsini in The Europeans, meaning that the staple diet of the Mezzogiorno has become the sort of thing at the core of the common Euroculture. But the pizza, as we understand it now, is a largely American invention. The quattro stagione is no more traditionally Italian than is the "ploughman's launch" (invented in a brewery advertising campaign in 1962) traditionally English or Irish Coffee (Shannon Airport, 1947) traditionally Irish.
Twenty-five years ago, hitching through southern Italy, I became addicted to pizzas. They were bought for a few pence from the bakery. They were thick, hot, and filling. I can still remember the taste of one I consumed when half-starved, sitting by the road outside Locorotundo in the trulli country of Puglia, on the "heel" of Italy. Apart from the dough, there were only five possible ingredients: olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil. No
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
