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Praise
for Delizia: 'A clever and provoking account of Italy's
history . . . informs as well as enlightens' - Guardian 'Perceptive,
fresh-thinking, impeccably researched'
Literary Review 'Mouthwatering.
. . Dickie's book is sheer pleasure' - Financial
Times
The common image of Italian food
is of cheery Mammas doling out pasta to their enormous extended
families in an olive grove. Yet this picture owes more to post-war
advertising than to the realities of Italian food.
In Delizia!, John Dickie, reveals
that Italian food comes not from the peasantry but from the cities.
Before it was finally united in 1870, Italy was a collection of
states based around cities: Naples, Florence, Bologna, Rome and
Turin. Just as Italy has only very recently become one country, the
idea of Italian as opposed to Neapolitan or Roman food is very
recent. John Dickie takes us on a journey around Italy and Italian
history, from Twelth Century Palermo to the Slow Food movement of
modern Turin via the immigrant slums of New York and the putrid
alleyways of nineteenth-century Naples. Along the way he shows us how
Italian food is firmly rooted in Italy's proud and often violent
urban tradition.
Fascinating, thought-provoking
and compulsive, Delizia! looks behind the myths to show the truth
about Italy and its food.
John Dickie is Reader in Italian
Studies at University College London and has written articles and
books on many aspects of Italian history. In 2005 he was awarded the
title Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella di Solidarieta' Italiana.
The common image of Italian food
is of cheery Mammas doling out pasta to their enormous extended
families in an olive grove. Yet this picture owes more to post-war
advertising than to the realities of Italian food.
In Delizia!, John Dickie, reveals
that Italian food comes not from the peasantry but from the cities.
Before it was finally united in 1870, Italy was a collection of
states based around cities: Naples, Florence, Bologna, Rome and
Turin. Just as Italy has only very recently become one country, the
idea of Italian as opposed to Neapolitan or Roman food is very
recent. John Dickie takes us on a journey around Italy and Italian
history, from Twelth Century Palermo to the Slow Food movement of
modern Turin via the immigrant slums of New York and the putrid
alleyways of nineteenth-century Naples. Along the way he shows us how
Italian food is firmly rooted in Italy's proud and often violent
urban tradition.
Fascinating, thought-provoking
and compulsive, Delizia! looks behind the myths to show the truth
about Italy and its food.
John Dickie is Reader in Italian
Studies at University College London and has written articles and
books on many aspects of Italian history. In 2005 he was awarded the
title Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella di Solidarieta' Italiana.
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