Fall 2025 Research Essay’s Topics
1. “From Survival to Style. The Making of Italian Gastronomic Identity from Unification to the Economic Boom”
Over the course of the semester, we have explored how Italian cuisine evolved alongside the nation’s political, social, and cultural transformations from the late 19th century to the post-World War II economic boom.
Using at least two of our guiding questions – When did Italian gastronomic identity develop? and Where did it take shape? – analyze how food reflects Italy’s journey from widespread poverty and emigration to becoming a global symbol of culinary excellence.
In your essay, consider the chronological framework discussed in class:
· Late 19th – Early 20th Century: Risorgimento, unification, and emigration.
· Interwar Period: Fascism and the politics of food.
· Post-World War II: Economic boom, modernization, and Americanization.
2. Pellegrino Artusi and the Making of Italian Culinary Identity
In 1891, La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well) emerged as one of the most influential cookbooks in Italian history. More than a simple collection of recipes, Artusi’s work helped forge a sense of national belonging through food, language, and narrative at a time when Italy was still defining itself as a unified nation.
In your essay, analyze the historical and cultural significance of Artusi’s text. How does La scienza in cucina reflect the social transformations of post-unification Italy, a country transitioning from regional fragmentation and economic hardship toward modernization and middle-class domesticity? In what ways did his approach to food contribute to the formation of a shared Italian identity?
You are encouraged to connect your analysis to class discussions and assigned readings, and to engage directly with Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene, available online through the University of Toronto Library system. You may focus on one or more recipes and/or passages from the author’s introduction to develop and support your argument.
3. Inventing Italy Overseas: Pasta, Pizza, and the Making of Italian Identity Abroad”
Reflect on the following statements discussed in class:
“Italians became macaroni eaters first abroad and then in Italy.”
“The first Italian cultural koine was alimentary before it was linguistic.”
Both ideas highlight the crucial role that Italian emigrants played in the development of a shared gastronomic identity. Using the examples of pasta and pizza, analyze how Italian immigrants helped shape and popularize Italian cuisine beyond the peninsula, adapting traditional recipes to new ingredients and conditions, influencing local food cultures, and contributing to the global image of Italy as a culinary nation.
In your essay, explore the role that migrant kitchens played in the emergence of a first Italian national identity. Why was it through food, and not through politics or language, that Italians abroad found common ground? How did dishes such as pasta and pizza, which were neither widespread nor emblematic across Italy itself, become powerful markers of identity and, eventually, symbols of national pride and international prestige?
Support your analysis with examples from class discussions and at least three assigned readings, demonstrating a critical understanding of this culinary evolution and its transnational dimensions.