Аннотация:Today, the relationship between Italian food and Italian identity seems an unremarkable fact. This article explores the history of this relationship by examining and comparing two cookbooks, Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (1891) and Filippo Marinetti's La cucina futurista (1932). Both cookbooks use food preparation and consumption to talk about larger questions of national identity, political crisis, and how Italians should be "made." Artusi advocated a national homogenization of existing food habits, spearheaded by the fledgling middle classes, while Marinetti proposed a complete revolution in Italian food habits, to overcome the past and start over. Although they sharply contrast with each other in their approach to questions of national identity and food consumption, they share a common concern with what was possible for future generations of Italians and a realization that food served a material, aesthetic, and political purpose in Italian history. The similarities between the books highlight the political significance of food in modern Italy. The differences between the two books demonstrate the possibilities -and limits-of shaping the nation and national identity through the everyday practices of preparing and consuming food.
