Pomodoro! : a history of the tomato in Italy / David Gentilcore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gentilcore, David.

Series:

Arts and traditions of the table.

Arts and traditions of the table : perspectives on culinary history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cooking (Tomatoes).

Tomatoes--Italy.

Tomatoes.

Tomatoes--History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 254 p. : ill., maps.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

More than just the beloved base ingredient of so many of our favorite dishes, the tomato has generated both profound riches and controversy in its farming, processing, exchange, and consumption. It is a crop infused with national pride and passion for those who grow it, and a symbol of Old World nostalgia for those who claim its history and legacy. Over time, the tomato has embodied a range of values and meanings. From its domestication in Central America, it has traveled back and forth across the Atlantic, powering a story of aspiration and growth, agriculture and industry, class and identity, and global transition. In this entertaining and organic history, David Gentilcore recounts the surprising rise of the tomato from its New World origin to its Old World significance. From its inauspicious introduction into Renaissance Europe, the tomato came to dominate Italian cuisine and the food industry over the course of three centuries. Gentilcore explores why elite and peasant cultures took so long to assimilate the tomato into Italian cooking and how it eventually triumphed. He traces the tomato's appearance in medical and agricultural treatises, travel narratives, family recipe books, kitchen accounts, and Italian art, literature, and film. He focuses on Italy's fascination with the tomato, painting a larger portrait of changing trends and habits that began with botanical practices in the sixteenth century and attitudes toward vegetables in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and concluded with the emergence of factory production in the nineteenth. Gentilcore continues with the transformation of the tomato into a national symbol during the years of Italian immigration and Fascism and examines the planetary success of the "Italian" tomato today, detailing its production, representation, and consumption.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

1 Strange and "Horrible Things"

2 Death by Vegetables

3 They "Are to Be Enjoyed"

4 Pasta al Pomodoro

5 Authentic "Italian Gravy"

6 The Autarchical Tomato

7 The Tomato Conquest

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9786613285249

9781283285247

128328524X

9780231525503

0231525508

OCLC:

680622149