Danielle Callegari, an associate professor of Italian at Dartmouth and co-host of the food and culture podcast “Gola,” released her latest book, “A Bite-Sized History of Italy: Gastronomic Tales of the Roman Empire, Renaissance, and Republic,” in June. Looking beyond Italy’s relatively recent founding as a nation-state in 1861, Callegari traces Italy’s distinct culinary history over thousands of years, examining food’s role in shaping its national identity. From the Roman Empire’s reverence for olive oil to the arrival of the tomato in the 16th century and Mussolini’s failed attempt to replace pasta with rice, Callegari explores food as a tool of both unity and division in the country.
Callegari sat down with The Dartmouth to discuss her research and writing process, the historical discoveries that interested her most and her recommendations for eating in Italy.
From your last book, “Dante’s Gluttons,” which focused on Dante’s use of food to critique social norms, to your podcast, “Gola,” where you discuss Italian food and beverage culture and now this new book “A Bite-Sized History of Italy,” Italian gastronomic history has clearly been a focus for you. What sparked your interest in the topic?
DG: I have always been drawn to Italian food and beverage culture, but when I moved to Italy to start my graduate work, I was struck by how central food is to Italians as a way to build friendships and community. In most places, when you’re trying to integrate into a new space, sharing a meal is a great way to make connections. In Italy, however, food and beverage stand out even more as critical ways to interact with others. Food is how they define themselves, describe themselves and create the characteristics of a hospitality space.
What are the regional differences in Italy? And in what ways is Italy united through food?
DG: The way we draw Italy on a map is a very recent phenomenon. Although it was formed in 1861, the boundaries we respect today date to just after World War II. Still, Italy’s shared cultural and ethnic background reaches back as far as 2,000 years, if not longer.
Since then, the social landscape of the peninsula has changed, and we see a lot of significant differences between large regions — from north to south and from coastal to interior. We also see cultural blending where Italy touches other European nations — Val d’Aosta shares a border with France; Trentino-Alto Adige shares a border with Austria, for instance. We also see separation among Italy’s islands, with Sardinia and Sicily being completely unique in respect to each other and the peninsula.
When looking for a sense of unity through food, the touchstones for possible points of unity come through the base products of olive oil, wine and, surprisingly, bread rather than pasta.
Despite Italy itself being a newer country, the Italian peninsula is steeped in thousands of years of history. Where does one begin the narrative of Italian culture?
DG: From the late Middle Ages, or much later with the Risorgimento, the actual formation of modern Italy as a country, or anything in between. The start of Italian culture can be pinpointed at many moments.
In my book, I decided to dip back to the ancient Roman period because it’s when Italy begins to tell the story of its origins. Even though much of what we know comes from legends that aren’t representative of real, recordable history, such as Virgil’s “Aeneid,” these legends still tell us a lot about what ancient Romans valued. From these legends, we see robust viticulture and an appreciation for olive oil, which was expensive and considered an important part of the diet. In Roman times, we also start to see other elements indigenous to the peninsula coming together to form the foundation that, many hundreds of years later, would lead to a cuisine that could be called Italian.
What was your research process like?
DG: There are two sides of research. One side is the classic academic approach: going to rare books and manuscripts, libraries and archives, and finding the textual or image evidence that I use to reconstruct some of the practices and values that people held in the past.
The other side is driving all over the place and meeting people, visiting farms as well as restaurants, purveyors and providers, talking to people, learning what they’re doing, finding out how they’re passing on knowledge from the past and how they’re experimenting and innovating for the future.
What did you find most interesting to research?
DG: I found the rise of the tobacco industry fascinating to research, not only because of its role in the nation’s development but also because of how important it remains today. Tobacco was a major part of Italian agriculture when Italy was just starting to form as a nation, and the industry grew during the World Wars as rolled industrial cigarettes became a huge industry. After World War II, much of American investment in the Italian peninsula through the Marshall Plan flowed into tobacco plantations in southern Italy.
Interestingly, the tobacco industry, as well as the rice industry in the North, were places where women played important roles in the labor force. This involvement paved the way to political enfranchisement and social and cultural liberation.
What might surprise people about Italian food history?
DG: I think what surprises people the most is that all the dishes and products we associate with Italy are recent developments. The tomato didn’t arrive until after the Columbian Exchange and didn’t become popular until the 1700s and 1800s.
Even pasta and its shapes are post-industrial. Although pasta becomes important, it turns out that the dish is a more recent addition to the cuisine. So spaghetti with tomato sauce is really a 20th-century thing. From the 1500s to the 1800s, people didn’t eat that dish. The spaghetti and meatballs you might eat at an Italian restaurant actually evoke a modern phenomenon. In fact, we can see this in the interactions between Italy and the rest of the world, especially the United States, and in how Italian cuisine became unified as a singular, pan-Italian identity by the 20th century.
Many Dartmouth students travel abroad to Italy through Dartmouth’s study abroad programs in the country. For students traveling abroad, what is your favorite Italian culinary city, and favorite food recommendation?
DG: Naples is a great destination, especially for those traveling on one of Dartmouth’s programs. Not only is the food inexpensive and delicious, but it is also very accessible from Rome — the fast train is only around 80 minutes, so you could easily make it a lunch outing.
In Naples, you can’t go wrong eating pizza, but I would recommend steering away from the hyper-popular area of the Tribunali — the Sorbillos of that world — and instead check out Da Attilio or Pizzeria al 22.
Traveling down the coast past Naples, there are incredible traditional practices overlooking beautiful places. For example, if you go to Cetara, you can visit an anchovy fishery where they still make a product called colatura, which is very similar to garum, a product I talk about in one of the early chapters of my book.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
