cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
Italy’s Great Garlic Divide - Taste Cooking
In the United States, garlic is woven into every pizza, pasta, and breadstick. But in Italy, it’s more complicated.
n a famous ancient Roman poem entitled “Moretum” (meaning “the salad” or “the pesto”) that is sometimes attributed to Virgil, a poor farmer named Simylus puts together a meal from what he can find in his garden: leeks, onions, bitter greens, coriander seeds, a few kinds of cabbage, and “stinking garlic.” The recipe doesn’t sound half bad, but the poem emphasizes that the rustic flavors and overpowering, tear-inducing flavor of garlic are meant only for men like Simylus who plow the fields with the beasts of burden. This vision of garlic as a poor ingredient for poor people had a powerful influence on Italian cooking, and even today, many Italians look at garlic—an allium that is cheap, abundant, and thus available to anyone—with suspicion.
But for the average American, garlic couldn’t be more inextricable from Italian cuisine. From Olive Garden’s unlimited, garlic-dusted breadsticks to the 30-clove pomodoro served at Lilia in Brooklyn, here, garlic is peeled and smashed liberally—a badge of honor for the cook and eater alike. Instead, in Italy, the story of Simylus and his humble harvest is shorthand for the connection between the scent of garlic and the “stink of poverty,” as historian John Dickie puts it in his book Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food.
In the United States, garlic is woven into every pizza, pasta, and breadstick. But in Italy, it’s more complicated.
n a famous ancient Roman poem entitled “Moretum” (meaning “the salad” or “the pesto”) that is sometimes attributed to Virgil, a poor farmer named Simylus puts together a meal from what he can find in his garden: leeks, onions, bitter greens, coriander seeds, a few kinds of cabbage, and “stinking garlic.” The recipe doesn’t sound half bad, but the poem emphasizes that the rustic flavors and overpowering, tear-inducing flavor of garlic are meant only for men like Simylus who plow the fields with the beasts of burden. This vision of garlic as a poor ingredient for poor people had a powerful influence on Italian cooking, and even today, many Italians look at garlic—an allium that is cheap, abundant, and thus available to anyone—with suspicion.
But for the average American, garlic couldn’t be more inextricable from Italian cuisine. From Olive Garden’s unlimited, garlic-dusted breadsticks to the 30-clove pomodoro served at Lilia in Brooklyn, here, garlic is peeled and smashed liberally—a badge of honor for the cook and eater alike. Instead, in Italy, the story of Simylus and his humble harvest is shorthand for the connection between the scent of garlic and the “stink of poverty,” as historian John Dickie puts it in his book Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food.