The Week of Italian Cuisine in the World, now at its 8th edition, is a promotional initiative aimed at showcasing the unique and top-quality features of the Italian wine and food sector, encouraging export, internationalization, and inbound tourism, through dedicated and targeted events in Italian Embassies, Consulates, Cultural Institutes, and ICE agencies.
It will be held from November, 13th to 19th worldwide through over 10,000 initiatives in more than a hundred countries, ranging from seminars on food to talks with chefs and business partners, classes, and demonstrative lessons. Part of this program, La Cucina Italiana, based on the creative idea of our Editor-in-Chief Maddalena Fossati Dondero, La Cucina Italiana stands out for the special project I Racconti delle Radici, which is a historical storytelling about Italian immigration in the late 1800s told through the family cooking – thus adding another important step to the path of Italian cuisine's candidacy as a UNESCO Intangible Heritage Element.
Today’s session held at the Farnesina, headquarters of Maeci (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation), had very important speakers such as Antonio Tajani, Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Francesco Lollobrigida, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forest Policies, and Minister of Sport, Andrea Abodi. Along with our Editor-in-Chief, the long list of special events and projects has been detailed to the national and international press to spread the word.
The involvement of “La Cucina Italiana” at SCIM 2023
The big news about the 2023 edition is that the main communicators of Italian gastronomic culture have been called upon to make their call. In addition to La Cucina Italiana, there are contributions from Casa Artusi with its project Italianismi nel mondo and the Accademia Italiana della Cucina, which presented its History of Italian Cuisine in Comics, for example.
La Cucina Italiana presents I Racconti delle Radici initiative, which does not end in the days of SCIM 2023, but will unravel throughout the course of 2024, as explained today at the Farnesina by Maddalena Fossati Dondero: «We studied what our ancestors left with, what they put in that famous cardboard suitcase symbolically always evoked to indicate someone who left home to find new opportunities. These are recipes that speak of nostalgia, of course, but even more of the courage and strength of those who set out into the unknown».
What is I Racconti delle Radici project
The storytelling of I Racconti delle Radici will explode into a 10-part web series, a photo exhibition, a cookbook and two webinars that will be spread to the 300 embassies, consulates and ICE offices across the planet. Through these channels, this special project expresses how the memories of the Italian abroad are always inextricably linked to cooking and sharing the table.
From the late nineteenth century to the 1960s, the great migration of Italians who wished to find a better life brought out of our borders tons of memories, recipes, food products, hidden in fragile cardboard suitcases. This incredible movement has created a cultural syncretism in which our roots mingled with the land of destination, giving rise to new dishes and unprecedented recipes.
Part of the project are illustrious names such as Simone Cinotto, professor of Contemporary History at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Massimo Montanari, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, Elisabetta Moro, full professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples, as well as real-life testimonies from people and personalities such as Lidia Bastianich and Rodrigo D'Erasmo.
A story through recipes and images
La Cucina Italiana sought examples of immigration to build the narrative of I Racconti delle Radici through recipes, images, and testimonies of those who experienced it, either firsthand or through the stories of their ancestors. Readers of "La Cucina Italiana" got a preview of it in the November issue, in which the project was presented with the first seven recipes – from Fernandito, the Fernet and Coke-based cocktail, to Australian Spag Bol, short for Spaghetti alla Bolognese, via Pope Francis' Baña Cauda. Through La Cucina Italiana, in chorus with the Farnesina, the storytelling will continue in 2024 through the monthly magazine on newsstands, the daily updated website and social channels.
Video Credits
Thanks to Lidia Bastianich, Luca Cefis, Rodrigo D'Erasmo, Giorgio Fragiacomo for their testimonials.
Thanks to architect Ruggero Barenghi for his wonderful hospitality in the Cerano Castle and for participating in the filming
Production Black Ball
Music CAM Sugar
Recipes Maria Donati
Styling Beatrice Prada
Suitcase photography Davide Maestri