Italy and the Potato: A History, 1550–2000

Description

Italy, like the rest of Europe, owes a lot to the ‘Columbian exchange’. As a result of this process, in addition to potatoes, Europe acquired maize, tomatoes and most types of beans. All are basic elements of European diet and cookery today. The international importance of the potato today as the world’s most cultivated vegetable highlights its place in the Columbian exchange. While the history of the potato in the United States, Ireland, Britain and other parts of northern Europe is quite well known, little is known about the slow rise and eventual fall of the potato in Italy. This book aims to fill that gap, arguing why the potato’s ‘Italian’ history is important. It is both a social and cultural history of the potato in Italy and a history of agriculture in marginal areas. David Gentilcore examines the developing presence of the potato in elite and peasant culture, its place in the difficult mountain environment, in family recipe notebooks and kitchen accounts, in travellers’ descriptions, agronomical treatises, cookery books, and in Italian literature. Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgements 1 The ‘Perverse Strangeness of the Seasons’: 1816–17 2 An Exotic American in Italy: 1573 3 The Potato Apostles, 1764–67 4 ‘Substituting Potatoes for Wheat’: The Late Nineteenth Century 5 ‘Up Here it Makes More Sense to Plant Potatoes’: Potatoes, Population and Emigration in Italy’s Mountain Regions 6 ‘New and Broader Horizons’: The Twentieth Century Epilogue: The Post- Modern Italian Notes Bibliography Index