A few weeks ago, in almost complete secrecy, I applied at the very last moment for a PhD after finding out my work contract would not be renewed due to ongoing and critical cuts happening across every department. It was a whirlwind but, as it was something I had been thinking about for quite some time, things fell into place. Most importantly, the few people who needed to know—my partner, my profs who wrote letters of reference, my friend currently doing her PhD who looked over my statement of purpose—showed up and had my back. It felt good and right.
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I wanted to share something a little different for today’s Sunday Story: an edited version of that statement of purpose and its accompanying growing bibliography. So much of the writing I’ve been doing here has built the foundations for this upcoming project. Think posts like:
Sunday Story #13: The histories of pâté chinois & how I thought it was Italian
And my latest, Carnevale/Cabane à sucre: Sugary seasons in Québec and Molise
My project, which will be a combined oral history + food memoir thingy (yes, this is the official term), explores Italian-Canadians’ relationship to food in Québec, and how it helped shape Italian-Canadian cuisine and the more general concept of “Italian food.”
Alberto Grandi, Italian Marxist academic and professor of Economics and Management, has argued in his two recent monographs—Denominazione di origine inventata. Le bugie del marketing sui prodotti tipici italiani (2020) and La cucina italiana non esiste. Bugie e falsi miti sui prodotti e i piatti cosiddetti tipici (2024)—and a vast media campaign that “Italian food doesn’t exist.” His most controversial claim was quoted in The Financial Times: “Italian cuisine really is more American than it is Italian.” Grandi is part of a growing cohort of Italian scholars complicating the narratives of Italian identity by looking outside the peninsula and, specifically, at diaspora communities.
From cookbooks like Italian American: Red Sauce Classics and New Essentials, Italian American Forever, Dolci! American Baking with an Italian Accent, to scholarly research, and pop culture, Italian-American cuisine has developed into a powerhouse with its own identity, traditions, and history. Post-Second World War, the United States had (and still has) one of the largest Italian diaspora communities in the world. Combined with the post-war boom of American cultural hegemony, Italian-American food adaptations and inventions also spread and gained notoriety.
Despite Canada’s large Italian diaspora, the same attention has not been given to our influence, nor the significance of Québecois Italian-Canadian food creations, like tortellini alla Gigi. How have Italian-Canadians contributed to the invention of “Italian food”? How has our particular context shaped our relationship with food and the foods we connect with? I am interested in the ways Italian-Canadians in Québec navigate their identity on and beyond the plate.
Digging Deeper
+ a growing bibliography
Through oral history, auto-ethnography, and archival research on early Italian-Canadian leaders in the food industry, I will look at issues of collective identity, politics, culture, and belonging. In the context of the Italian diaspora in Québec, this work requires a journey between at least three languages, histories, and cultures. Through the generations, diets have changed and allowed for further shared cultural touch points between Québecois and Italian-Canadians. As a third generation Italian-Canadian born and raised in this province, pâté chinois is as much a part of my history as homemade pasta.
In my research for the cookbook, I focused on the ways first, second, and third generation Italian-Canadians of Molisan descent upheld and adapted food traditions from their region of origin. The oral histories added personal context to the meaning of the recipes, but also lived testimonies that spoke to Molise’s folklore, history, and landscape as understood through the diaspora. It became consistently evident that there is a stark difference between the way people relate to this food versus the version of Italian food they came to build and know in Québec. Here, they were introduced to recipes from different Italian regions, a new kind of sauce à spaghetti, and had access to a wider variety of ingredients. Eventually, Italian-Canadians in Québec developed their own landscape of food celebrities and institutions.
Now that you have an idea of the topic, I wanted to share my ever-growing bibliography! This is something I’ve been working on since before I even knew I would apply for a PhD. Right now, it features heavily on books and monographs, without many articles. Those will get added eventually.
Italian-Canadian and American History
Simone Cinotto The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City
Joseph Sciorra Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City
Walter Temelini The Leamington Italian Community: Ethnicity and Identity in Canada
Francesca Boschetti (thesis) “The hyphen: foodways as a metaphorical language in Canadian immigrant literature”
Samuel Biagioni (thesis) “Homemade Italianità: Italian foodways in postwar Vancouver”
Franca Iacovetta, Marlene Epp Sisters or strangers?: immigrant, ethnic and racialized women in Canadian history
Franca Iacovetta Such Hardworking People: Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto
Roberto Perin and Franc Sturino Arrangiarsi: The Italian Immigration Experience in Canada
Robert A. Orsi The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950
Sonia Cancian Families, Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to Canada
Jordan Stanger-Ross Staying Italian: Urban Change and Ethnic Life in Postwar Toronto and Philadelphia
Joseph Sciorra Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives
Jo Marie Powers “Buon appetito!: Italian foodways in Ontario”
Laura Marie Andrea Sanchini (thesis) “"It's strange, we're not Italian but we're not Canadian either": the performance of ethnic identity among young Montreal Italians”
Teresa Luciana (thesis) “On women's domestic work and knowledge: growing up in an Italian kitchen”
Alexander Travis Hughes (thesis) “Lake Effect Pizza: The Commodification and Culture of Pizza in Toronto, Ontario and Buffalo, New York 1950-1990”
Hollo Martelle, Michael McClelland, Tatum Taylor, John Lorinc The Ward uncovered: the archaeology of everyday life
John E. Zucchi Italians in Toronto: Development of a National Identity, 1875-1935
Food History
Diana Garvin Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women's Food Work
Franca Iacovetta, Valerie J. Korinek, Marlene Epp Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History
Janis Thiessen Snacks: A Canadian Food History
Thelma Barer-Stein You eat what you are: A study of Canadian ethnic food traditions
Julian Armstrong Made in Quebec: a culinary journey
Edna Alford, Claire Harris Kitchen talk: contemporary women's prose and poetry
Dave Corriveau Histoire p'tits gâteaux Vachon : 1923-99: De sucre et d'audace
Anya von Bremzen National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home
Cookbooks
Giulia Scarpaleggia Cucina Povera
Delia De Santis, Loretta Gatto-White Italian Canadians at the table: A narrative feast in five courses
Emily Richards Per la famiglia: memories and recipes of southern Italian home cooking
Angie Rito, Scott Tacinelli, et al Italian American: Red Sauce Classics and New Essentials
Alex Guarnaschelli Italian American Forever: Classic Recipes for Everything You Want to Eat
Daniel Bellino-Zwicke Sunday Sauce: When Italian-Americans Cook
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen
Renato Poliafito Dolci!: American Baking with an Italian Accent
Marcella Hazan
Anna del Conte
Nancy Verde Barr We Called It Macaroni: An American Heritage of Southern Italian Cooking
Sonny Sung Italian with a Twist: Italian, French, Asian, Canadian
Italian History
Pino April Terroni
Alberto Grandi La cucina italiana non esiste. Bugie e falsi miti sui prodotti e i piatti cosiddetti tipici
Denominazione di origine inventata. Le bugie del marketing sui prodotti tipici italiani
Storia delle nostre paure alimentari. Come l'alimentazione ha modellato l'identità culturale
Massimo Montanari Amaro. Un gusto italiano
Il cibo come cultura
Il mito delle origini. Breve storia degli spaghetti al pomodoro
L'identità italiana in cucina
La cucina italiana: Storia di una cultura
Karima Moyer-Nocchi Chewing the Fat: An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita
Food Memoirs
Kim Sunée Trail of Crumbs
Gael Greene The Insatiable Critic
Jessica Harris My Soul Looks Back
Laurie Colwin Home Cooking
Ruth Reichl Comfort Me with Apples
Ruth Reichl Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
Calvin Trillin Alice, Let’s Eat
Yemisi Aribisala Longthroat Memoirs
Betty Fussell My Kitchen Wars
Nigel Slater Toast
A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… a Memoir of Sorts
Anna del Conte Risotto with Nettles
Maryse Condé Of Morsels and Marvels
The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook
Fanny Singer Always Home
Caroline Eden Cold Kitchen
Giulia Melucci I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti
Anthony Bourdain Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal
The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
MFK Fisher Serve it Forth
Consider the Oyster
How to Cook a Wolf
The Gastronomical Me
With Bold Knife and Fork
Among Friends
As They Were: Autobiographical Essays
Sister Age
To Begin Again: Stories and Memoirs, 1908-1929
Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: Journals and Stories 1933-1941
Last House: Reflections, Dreams, and Observations, 1943-1991
Michelle Zauner Crying in H Mart: A Memoir
Baek Sehee I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
Anya von Bremzen Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing
Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning, Lyn Nguyen Mango and Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and the American Dream
Hannah Howard Plenty: A Memoir of Food and Family
Feast: True Love in and out of the Kitchen
Sumayya Usmani Andaza: A Memoir of Food, Flavour and Freedom in the Pakistani Kitchen
Rabia Chaudry Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family
Vince Agro In Grace's kitchen : memories and recipes from an Italian-Canadian childhood
Lola Milholland Group Living and Other Recipes: A Memoir
Monica Meneghetti What the Mouth Wants: A Memoir of Food, Love and Belonging
Maria Cioni Spaghetti Western: How My Father Brought Italian Food To The West
Aldo Nazarko A river of oranges: memories of a displaced childhood
Cass
Article/monograph/food memoir/cookbook recommendations!
What at some particularities/adaptations of or interesting facts about your diaspora cuisine?
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News
In case you missed it
February’s monthly Crivello was just published on the intersections between Molisan Carnevale and Québecois cabane à sucre:
Carnevale/Cabane à sucre
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If you grew up in Québec, I am willing to bet your first school field trip was to a cabane à sucre (sugar shack). That field trip set the tone for me. For years to come, I would compare every cabane à sucre to the one from that day. There, I discovered what has re…
The last copies of my calendar are on sale! It comes with either 100 or 280 stickers to decorate each month. Get yours here.
I got to collaborate with my friend, playwright and actor Michaela Di Cesare, these last few months to create the poster and social media graphics for her upcoming play, Mickey & Joe (Good. Bad. Ugly. Dirty). If you live in Montreal or happen to be around from May 17-25, you should get tickets!
This is the coolest project ever ❤️