Jean Ger Week 1 Reflection

Jean Ger

Villa

Making the Mediterranean

13 October 2015

Week 1 Reflection

   Growing up, my mom would always prepare food for my sister and I, sharing words of nutritional wisdom in order to encourage us to eat it. "Eat your carrots! They are good for your eyesight." Recently, she told me before I left for my Mediterranean study abroad program, "Don't eat tomatoes alone, they are too acidic and are bad for your stomach." I presume she referenced tomatoes in specific because the Mediterranean diet is often characterized by a few key ingredients: olive oil, tomato, pasta, etc. When thinking of classic, authentic Italian cuisines now, I am not as naive as I was once was. If you asked me a few years ago, I would have said spaghetti and meatballs or pizza. Now, I know that spaghetti and meatballs is actually an Italian-American produced cuisine, having been created with newly abundant ingredients available to immigrants in the New World. Pizza, on the other hand, is an authentic Italian creation having roots in Naples.

   Before we assess pizza's roots in Naples, it is essential to first recognize the Columbian Exchange, where ingredients like tomatoes came to be more readily accessible globally.  When discussing the Columbian Exchange, we often focus on the two overtly devastating features of it: the forced migration of over twelve million African slaves and the annihilation of Native American populations through Old World diseases, forced labor, and genocide. Even today there is still discourse revolving around the appropriateness of the American holiday, Columbus Day, now calling for a recognition of the perceived holiday instead as "Indigenous Peoples' Day," to both commemorate the lives lost and to celebrate the perseverance of their cultures that are still alive and well within our society. The devastation of populations is easily seen with a direct connection to  an exchange for capital greed. However, in Nunn and Qian's essay, "The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas," rather than justifying the devastation, we conceptualize the Columbian Exchange through a new lens by acknowledging the increase in nutrition from the wider accessibility to different foods globally. Though it is completely essential to regard this devastation, it is also important to acknowledge other factors and outcomes of this exchange to gain a fuller perspective of these events.

    The tomato, in particular, was brought from South America during these exchanges. Medical ideas brought the idea that tomatoes had to be cooked, or they were considered a health risk. Tomatoes were not hastily consumed until cooked, since they were thought to hinder digestion due to it’s acidity and cold and damp nature (Gentilcore, 47). Reflecting on what my mother warned me about tomatoes before my trip, it is interesting to see how health perceptions over time are so inconsistent with new knowledge, even with the tomato during the 19th century.

Neapolitans were first to start consuming tomatoes raw in salads. Peasants of southern Italy consumed tomatoes during the summer for that it was all they had to eat during the season (65). Naples has been characterized as a poor, southern region in Italy, suffering after Italian unification. Though labor intensive, tomatoes were cheap and became a source of income for poor Neapolitans. Tomatoes were widely grown in the south of Italy, and though it was a source of income for Neapolitans, the region was still devastated with poverty.

    For one soldo, Neapolitans could feed themselves with pizza sold on street corners (Serao, 1). Pizza originated in Naples, but like how Serao’s essay begins referencing Rome, it has been appropriated and brought to many different regions. We can see even walking the streets of Florence the vast availability and variety of pizza. However, it is hard to neglect that the vast availability of tomatoes that has often been used as a condiment for pizza was brought through an exchange that devastated thousands of lives. Would the consumption of tomatoes and other nutritional foods be as widespread today if it were not for the devastation of populations? Does the end justify the means? My answer is no. However, it is the reality of our history that we must not neglect. Additionally it is a reality of our history that fed starving, poor populations, such as in Naples. I believe in alternatives to violence in creating a globalized world. Unfortunately, that is not our history. In response to our past, we must look critically in where our food comes from, our perceptions of food, as well as if and how human rights have been exploited for our convenience today.

       It is, however, interesting to see how a "poor man's dish" has become consumed in a variety of ways today. Pizza has now become a globally consumed dish. Fast food chains like Pizza Hut or Domino's have had a global monopoly on the distribution of this dish. Pizza has been consumed in a range of forms, from of cheap street food, to fast-food delivery from the aforementioned chains, or in sit-down, fancy restaurants. In Istanbul, we ate "pide," which is the Turkish version of pizza. However, I question whether variations of what we have come to perceive as pizza originating from Italy have actually originated from their own culinary exploration rather than using Italian pizza as a model. Though pizza itself is Italian, perhaps variations of this type of dish existed simultaneously or before its introduction. This also leads me to question whether my innate response of thinking of varied forms of pizza is influenced from Italy is due to the widespread association of pizza with Italy, or from my own, initial Western perspective of associating the West as a model for the rest of the world.