Birth of a myth The Italian gastronomy

BY ANTONIO PUZZI

It must be said that until then, few people had been interested in food in Italy (and - with the exception of France - we could say "in the world"): the first attempts to identify the origin of the products can be attributed to an official of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rolando Ricci, who in the 1950s conceived the DOC brand for wines, which, however, was only officially recognized with the Law Decree of 12 July 1963. Again in the 1950s, precisely in 1953, the journalist Orio Vergiani founded the Italian Academy of Cuisine, leading it until his death in 1960. The Academy was mainly interested in the traditional recipes of Italy, realizing the first Guide to restaurants in 1961. Arcigola, Gambero Rosso and, from 10 December 1989, Slow Food, on the other hand, immediately acted as mediators between producers and consumers, offering the latter the possibility of becoming co-producers themselves, or people capable of directing the market. Those were the same years in which Pizza e Pasta Italiana, the Italian issue of this magazine took its first steps. Those were the years of the great renaissance of Italian food and wine, put in check by an unfortunate gesture and able, like the phoenix, to rise from the ashes.

p.6

Italy, land of saints, poets and culinary connoisseurs