When Italy declared war on pasta

In December 1930, a “Manifesto of the Futurist Kitchen” was published in “La Cucina Italiana”, a magazine founded by the fascist editor Umberto Notari and his wife Delia Pavoni Notari. The author Filippo Marinetti described pasta as an “absurd Italian gastronomic religion” and called for its abolition.

Marinetti was the founder and most prominent representative of the futurism, an avant-garde art movement founded in 1909 that claimed to have founded a new culture and found its form in art, architecture, poetry, music and film. Enthusiastic about technology, speed and war, the Futurists were closely associated with Fascism, which was emerging in Italy at the same time. The Futurists rejected museums, libraries, and any kind of looking back into the past. According to them, traditions in Italy were responsible for the decline.

Among these was the culinary tradition. In the 1930 Futurist Kitchen Manifesto and the 1932 Futurist Cookbook, Marinetti described a near future in which the Italian population would take their nutrients in pill form and meals would become performance art, enhanced by technology, perfume and music would be upgraded. He advocated experimental, often absurd dishes – salami cooked in coffee and cologne, anyone? – and for the abolition of knives and forks.

However, according to Marinetti, pasta was above all the root of all evil, the main cause of Italy’s backwardness. “Pasta is not good for Italians,” he wrote, claiming that it causes disorders in the pancreas and liver, leading to “laziness, pessimism, nostalgic laziness and neutrality.”

These were certainly not the views of a single eccentric. Marinetti’s opinion was shared by many: “Pasta is like our rhetoric – only good to stuff your mouth,” noted, for example, the fascist theater critic Marco Ramperti. The poet Gabriel Audisio called pasta a “dictatorship of the stomach” requiring a “rhythm of laziness”.

Marinetti could also count on (at least ideological) support from the highest levels: the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was equally unimpressed by his country’s world-famous culinary tradition. He was a fast eater and, like his friend Adolf Hitler, was an impatient, reluctant participant in long, formal meals, such as being a guest of the King of Italy.

Mussolini’s anti-pasta stance also had strategic, economic reasons: by trying to persuade Italians to abolish pasta in favor of rice, he wanted to rid Italy of foreign imports of wheat, which international sanctions and a struggling domestic economy have made increasingly difficult. was to buy. However, rice flourished in northern Italy.

But … – you can imagine. The anti-pasta efforts of the Futurists and Fascists did not go down well with the Italian population. In Aquila, Abruzzo, the women of the town wrote a protest letter defending “the honor of pasta.” The mayor of Naples proclaimed: «In paradise, the angels eat alone vermicelli al pomodoro». The modern fashion magazine called Marinetti and his futuristic allies “overcooked”.

In 1932, La Cucina Italiana – the same magazine that had published Marinetti’s Manifesto the previous year – found itself in the midst of controversy when it published an article by the Italian pasta maker Puritas sponsored competition to find the best sauce for a kilo Puritas– to make maccheroni. Publisher Umberto Notari knew how to use the controversy for promotional purposes – which is probably why no less than the anti-pasta pope himself, Filippo Marinetti, was nominated for the competition jury, along with the usual high-ranking representatives of the Italian cultural elite of time.

And it kept what it promised: According to culinary historian Samanta Cornaviera, Marinetti arrived too late to attract the public and immediately loudly demanded that the participating sauces be tasted only with rice instead of the pasta he detested. In the end, however, Marinetti was able to agree on a winner with the other judges: Amedeo Pettini, former royal chef and nationally renowned gastro critic. Pettini presented a sauce made with tomatoes, anchovies, fried artichokes, ham and chopped pistachios.

He called her:

Sugo Marinetti.

In the end, Marinetti’s war against Pasta was as unsuccessful as Mussolini’s outright war against the Allies. Marinetti died in December 1944. Mussolini was executed a few months later, in April 1945. During Italy’s post-war economic boom, pasta became even more popular than ever.

Today, the war on pasta is long forgotten. Unfortunately, the Sugo Marinetti also in oblivion – were it not for the research of culinary history. Samanta Cornaviera recommends Sugo Marinetti to try, especially since it is «delizioso».

And you can also tell your guests the beautiful story behind it.