ACROSS THE BORDER

From spaghetti with meatballs in the US to coffee in Melbourne, Italy’s food identity has evolved with the movement of its people, writes JOHN IRVING.

- JOHN IRVING

When Pellegrino Artusi published his cookbook La Scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiare bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well) in 1891, Italy had only been unified politically for 30 years. His aim was to unify the country gastronomically by collecting its regional recipes. His readership was urban, middle-class and literate, but even as he wrote – and for different reasons – food was also on the minds of other Italians. Namely the peasants who, victims of a nationwide agrarian crisis, were fleeing the country to seek fortune across Europe and beyond. They might as well have been from a different planet.

Between 1876 and 1914, about eight million Italians sailed to “La Merica” – not so much a geographical entity as a dream of a better life. It was their hunger that shaped the popular image of Italian food worldwide. Their wonder at the abundance they found on reaching their destinations transpires from their letters home. “Here everyone, from the richest to the poorest, eats meat, bread and soup every day,” wrote one new Venetian arrival in Argentina.