Italian cuisine is renowned for its quality and is loved around the world – but what if its supposedly centuries-old tradition is just an invention of the past 50 years? At least that’s what the economic historian Alberto Grandi claims. We got to the bottom of his outrageous theories.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
01:05 Pizza
02:07 Spaghetti Carbonara
03:07 Olive oil
03:51 Parmesan cheese
04:36 Italian grandmas
05:13 Outro
CREDITS
Report: Lina Wölfel, Michael Kadereit
Camera: Susanne Gessner
Edit: Jennifer Gärtner
Supervising editors: Mirja Viehweger, Ruben Kalus
#dweuromaxx #italianfood #italy
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36 Comments
This dude is a ~50 years old edgelord, which is not a good look.
Mah … per favore….
come on , italy is about burly more than 100 year old country , with friendship with powerful america they stole recipes from greece china persia and spain, took the credit for themselves as a nation making project, the language itself create 100 year ago and still not all people in that place cannot speak it
I dont know why but it seems Alberto Grandi (for whatever reason) decided to go on a crusade against Italian cuisine. Must be for personal reasons, I cant explain it otherwise.
What does @lionfield think about it?
This guy seems to work for the American multinationals to avoid Italian cuisine to be part of Unesco world heritage.
If Italian food becomes world heritage multinationals like Heinz, Nestle, etc will have to pay royalties for using Italian names in their products. That is why there is an increasing interest to attack Italian candidacy
So how come the ancient Romans generally only invaded and occupied places where olives could grow? Olive oil was a massive part of their diet. This guy is just being provocative in order to get publicity
Consiglio al dott. Alberto grandi, storico, di leggere qualche libro di cucina scritto nel XVI, XVII. XVIII ecc. li troverà ricette che lo stupiranno, per esempio nell'opera dello Scappi del XVI sec. o il Cuoco piemontese del 1791 o mille altri testi simili, così si renderà conto che le ricette della cucina italiana hanno una lunghissima tradizione. A proposito del parmigiano; E' citato già nell'anno 1.000 era prodotto a Lodi e lo chiamavano grana o formaggio di Milano perchè veniva commercializzato li. Consiglio anche di leggere il menu del banchetto che i Medici hanno dato per la festa in onore della figlia Maria che andava in sposa al Re di Francia e che si è poi portata al seguito i cuochi di casa. Per quanto riguarda le nonne mia nonna, nata nel 1887, cucinava benissimo e con poco realizzava ottimi pranzi e cene. Se poi volesse esagerare nell'approfondire c'è in edizione moderna anche con doppio testo latino – italiano il de Re Coquinaria di Apicius contemporaneo di Plinio il vecchio.
I'm not allowed to eat bread, pizza or pasta. I miss them.
6th myth: Dr. Grandi's credibility.
The flath-earther of italian gastronomy.
Italians can't be bothered to speak english? I can't be bothered to watch that video. Ciao
People were poor and that was reflected in the food they ate. As people became more prosperous, they got better ingredients and food.
Olive oil wasent used in the Mediterranean who TF is this clown 😂
Rubbish.
Everyone is complaining in the comments, but maybe his points have some truth to them? He is an academic after all and it would be good to go through his sources. I mean 1944 for carbonara is not very old so it may very well be true? The others too, just cause italians are angry about this does not mean there may be a bit of critical truth to it…
ridiculous character is related to the Spanish who claims Christopher Columbus is not Italian
But i still like Italian food. And Spanish's
I am sure that, in the 1970' when I was a kid, my italian grandmother always had Olive oil in her kitchen.
Of course and since this is a German channel, the question is: what is it about garlic and Germans? Why the seemingly negative relationship?
I am not Italian but know quite a lot about the culture and food and this guy has clearly lost his mind. Just trying to state absurd facts just to get some attention. Yes Italian food just like any other has and will continue to evolve but that doesn't mean it is not Italian.
The first pizzeria in NYC which likely first in America was started by guy or guy from Naples. He took his pizza making skills from Naples, and applied it here. Then after WW2 two Kansas white boys stopped over after their Navy stint over, got a job at that pizzeria to learn for a few months. Then went back to Wichita, and came up with their own thing they called Pizza Hut. Of course they changed the recipes.
veramente la pizza era un prodotto un po´ curiosa originaria da Barletta…al epoca i Francesci occuparano la cittá e bloccarono il passaggio impodendo il trasporto di cibo.
Cosí un cuoco furioso prese resti di carne, legumi e formaggio e mescolava tutto con pane, friggendo in una pentola…dopodiché lancio tutto sul capo dei soldati dal muro…
certamente é una leggenda, ma bella di leggerla:))
Funny how no one ever invites someone to challenge what this charlatan says, like the false claim that the term "spaghetti" is American when, in fact, it appears in the cookbooks of Pellegrino Artusi from the 1800s, long before Italians emigrated across the ocean. These videos are quite pointless because they never invite anyone who can actually fact-check what he says, like the other food historians who have debunked his claims.
This guy seems like the Graham Hancock of Italian cuisine.
Lol this guy is creating new myths.
Reality check: If you tell an Italian Grandma she can't cook. She'll beat you within an inch of your life.
This one is a economic professor, not a historian or a geography expert. He can speak about che commercialisation of some products but obviously ignorant about how origins, evolve and consume foods. Italians been quite poor for the last 2 centuries, and divided. So talking about generic Italian origins of food is wrong as methodology. It's depends of place, social status, which cities. Nowadays come recipes are improved and promoted in specific ways, something with certification of quality and producing systems. But doesn't mean that a specific recipe was not present. Italians ad fascism era was in low of alphabetization, of course you can't find a lot of grandma's written recipe.
This guy will never set foot on Italian soil again, lmao
1. Pizza dates all the way back from the Middle ages. It was not invented in Naples but Neapolitan pizza was originally just a variety of pizza that became famous. Different regional varities of Pizza used to exist all over Italy and beyond. You have for example Sfincione, Pizzolo, Pizza pugliese, Piscilandrea from Liguria. Some recipes for focaccia are also very similar to pizza (such as Focaccia messinese). Some of these regional pizza styles have influenced American pizza culture quite a bit, pan pizza and deep dish pizza or "cold cheese" pizza being descendants. Then you have stuffed pizzas of which there are countless varieties. Calzone is the only one world famous today.
2. Carbonara is just a name of one of the varities of "Pasta caci e uova" pasta with egg and cheese- A dish found throughout central and southern Italy with many variations. There are many of these traditional dishes which involve pasta, eggs, salt pork and cheese which makes it ridiculous to claim that it's not originally Italian. The story of American militaries taking eggs and bacon to Italy and thus creating the dish, is not credible. The combination existed before. Some very old pasta dishes, such as Timballo use this combination. Even adding peas and cream to similar dishes existed as variations on similar dishes, in Italy.
3. Olive oil was very much used in Ancient Roman cuisine and has been used in food since at least early Bronze age. Even though it was expensive at times doesn't mean that it wasn't used, especially in southern Italy and olive oil producing areas where it was cheap. There are many olive oil recipes with continuity all the way from the ancient Roman ages such as Pesto genovese which is very similar to an Ancient Roman paste called Moretum. Olive oil breads and Italian salad dressings also go back to ancient Rome, and things such as dipping bread into oil and vinegar (which many Italians do).
Grandis confidence and the way he just makes a bunch of sweeping claims is frankly incredulous, but the fact of the matter is that he doesn't even know the details of Italian cuisine. He just makes up history as he sees fit.
the man is a realist . its true what he says..
its a touchy subject because Italian food is well known globally , its in the top 5 of cuisines right? , chinese, italian, french , indian, japanese
but… we need to remember .. in the 1800s there was no fine dining. the restaurant, brunch, lunch culture.. none of that existed..
magazines, chefs, tv shows.. hospitality culture..
the 1900s in italy.. was regional cooking.. and tourists werent coming like 2000
pizza was exploding in the USA in the 1900 to 1950s.. but in italy it was still only in naples. it wasnt until after the war when it went nationwide.
but by the 1960s in the USA it was already An american product and pizza chains had dominated the world.
might have had its origins in naples in a small area to a small group of people in the 1850s.. but for 100 years did nothing.
it was the Americans who turned Pizza into a global food.
coffee too..
now.. the italian food our great great great grandparents ate in italy was NOTHING like we eat today.. NOTHING…
in the 1600s and 1700s they werent even eating tomatoes.. this is why y,ou NEVER see a tomato in any paintings from the past.. because tomatoes didnt arrive until the 1600s and wasnt really used in eating until the late 1700s… so LEONARDO DAVINCI never ate a pizza, never ate a caprese , never ate spaghetti pomodoro. actually he wouldnt even know 90% of italian food.
but this goes for all countries.. dont get me started on American food in the 1600s or 1700s compared to today..
we all evolved…
the famous italian food of today is only a few decades old…
but thats because life as we know it on earth is really only 100 years old and mostly 50 years old and the hospitality industry as we know it today is probably 40 years old…
and really exploded in the past 30..
grand mothers cant cook? cooking is a skill… some can,.. some cant..
also italian food is relgional.. mothers in naples dont make food from piedmont, and mothers from sicily dont cook food from rome.. or neopolitan mothers dont cook food from venice
they didnt know how! they only cooked with what they had.. which wasnt very much…
the man is correct..
As an Italian, I can say that Italian cuisine is full of myths and misconceptions, but it's so obvious that Grandi is just talking nonsense and probably just wants attention. It's clear that he's being intellectually dishonest. When someone talks about "Italian" culinary habits while completely ignoring the country's regional diversity, it already shows how low the quality of their historical analysis is. Saying things like "olive oil wasn't widely used in Italy before the 1980s" is ridiculou, WHERE in Italy? Are you talking about Piedmont or Puglia? There is a HUGE difference between those. My grandfather, born in southern Italy in 1905, had his own olive mill, and olive oil was always an essential part of his life. Maybe in Piedmont, they used butter or animal fats more, but to make sweeping statements like that is absurd.
Then there's the claim that "pizza arrived in America first." My grandmother, from the province of Avellino (near Naples), was making pizza in her wood-fired oven every week in the 1930s, and it was a sacred dish for her. Maybe pizza became popular in New York before it did in Turin since many southern itlians went there before, but that doesn't mean it's more American. Pizza has been a staple in southern Italy for ages. Also nobody claims PIZZA as an WHOLE ITALY national dish, everybody knows it's droma Naples and the south.
As for the carbonara, it’s so laughable what he affirms. Grandi plays the expert food historian and then makes claims without any historical evidence.
What does he even mean by saying that carbonara ingredients aren’t part of Italian cuisine? Pasta, cheese (a staple in Italian gastronomy for centuries), and cured meats (whether pancetta or guanciale—Italians have always consumed tons of cured meats), along with eggs and pepper, aren’t "Italian" ingredients? It's like he's ignoring parallel recipes like Amatriciana or Gricia. And the idea that we need to pinpoint the origin of a simple dish like carbonara is absurd. It could have evolved in countless ways across different cities, towns, or even families. Do we really need Americans to enlighten us with the concept of adding eggs to pasta?
Everything this clown says isn't just false, it’s completely senseless and proves nothing at all.
I'm buying his book immediately.
This "professor" is absolutely a clown. Everything he said is false. I'll just here contradict the "theory" n. 3. Olive oil was used a lot in cuisine at the time of my grandmother, in fact, they were even used in drinking small portions of it. It was their main source of food, so this claim is absolutely ridiculous
He's totally right. Pizza is an American product, and carbonara has nothing to do with Mediterranean cuisine. Pizza essentially originates from the middle east, same as spaghetti come from China.
As as foodie obsessive myself, the most consistent fact about the origins of food and recipes, is that most of them come from poverty (Rich people don't cook really 🤷♂️). If you follow that rule, you will understand that the best food from Europe, for example, is simply a mix of wars and invasions by the Moorish, Romans and Ottoman Empires across the region😉Every recipe can be interpreted differently, because each one of us have diverse backgrounds and cultural influences😉For example, when making a Carbonara, you can use a high quality Prosciutto when you can't find Guanciale🥓which is hard to find; if you don't have Pecorino, you can use Parmesan🧀The best Pizza of the world?🍕It's NOT a simple question, because there is no real winner, but countries and cities in the US as New York & New Haven and Argentina & Naples, including Italy in general🤔Why? Because there are all DIFFERENT, but EXCELLENT in there own WAY🤷♂️The author has a good point👍