Se c’è una cosa che mette d’accordo tutti gli italiani è l’idea che panna e burro siano il male assoluto in cucina. Tanto insalubri (“grasso”! “colesterolo”!) quanto pericolosi per identità culinaria nazionale (“non c’entrano niente con la nostra tradizione!”). E in queste circostanze, la pasta con la panna rappresenta un caso emblematico.
A volte ritornano… la Pasta alla Panna
Edda Orlandi • December 4, 2012
Edda Orlandi writes ...
Fino a poco fa, l’ultimo ricordo che avevo della pasta con panna era di averla mangiata nell’88 o giù di lì, preparata dalla nonna a condizione che non lo raccontassimo alla mamma. Da allora, dopo l’invenzione della dieta mediterranea, è stata retrocessa, nell’immaginario collettivo, da piatto degno di essere servito ai nipotini da nonne ben intenzionate benché non molto consapevoli sul lato della sana alimentazione, a stereotipo dell’orrore che esemplificava quanto di più insalubre ma soprattutto kitsch potesse essere immaginato (rimane memorabile la celebre scenetta di Lillo & Greg con il cameriere della trattoria “Non solo panna”, che snocciola il suo menu “penne e panna, penne panna prosciutto, penne panna prosciutto e funghi…”).
Sembrava che la pasta alla panna fosse sparita dalle tavole italiane per più di vent’anni, ma giusto l’anno scorso in questo periodo, leggendo alcuni diari delle pietanze preparate durante la settimana da parte di massaie intervistate per una ricerca di mercato, mi sono accorta che le famigerate 4P anni ’80 (Penne-Panna-Prosciutto e Piselli) spopolavano in quasi tutti, descritte come piatto “appetitoso e nutriente”. Iniziale stupore da parte mia. Dopo poche settimane mi capita di leggere il post di una temeraria food blogger che osa presentare una pasta con panna e salmone (attribuendola perfidamente alla suocera, con la scusa di renderle omaggio). La settimana successiva mi accorgo che anche sul menu dell’osteria aspirazionale di fronte all’ufficio hanno piazzato i tortellini alla panna… e da lì, nel giro di un mese, l’epidemia è dilagata ovunque: una invasione di panna sui menu pausa pranzo dei bar intorno alla circonvallazione interna di tutta Milano.
E così, ecco riabilitate, come qualunque oggetto che fu di moda e senza dubbio lo sarà ancora, forse complice il bisogno di conforto suscitato dalla crisi, anche le penne&panna snobbate dall’integralismo dieta-mediterraneo.
[NdR: questo post inaugura la discussione del cibo e della tavola, elementi fondamentali per qualsiasi analisi saziante della cultura italiana, ieri e oggi]
It is almost one year since our colleague, friend, and former Chair of ACIS left us. We have asked former ACIS Chairs, Management Committee Members, and awardees to share their memories and thoughts. We are hoping to add more statements from anyone who knew David, especially while he was supporting ACIS. If you would like to share your memories with the ACIS community, please write to admin@acis.org.au .
Open until 14 April 2024, the exhibition Emerging From Darkness: Faith, Emotion and The Body in the Baroque is presented at Victoria's Hamilton Gallery (on the unceded lands of the Eastern Maar and Gunditjmara peoples), in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Unprecedented, and monumental in scope, Emerging From Darkness brings together an exceptional group of works from public and private collections in Australia. It was curated by Associate Professor David R. Marshall , Principal Fellow in Art History at the University of Melbourne, Dr Lisa Beaven , Adjunct Senior Research at La Trobe University, and Laurie Benson , Senior Curator of International Art at the NGV. Here two curators explain some of the project’s background and aims.
In Italy this year th ere has been no shortage of Manzoni celebrations, particularly in Milan . And in Australasia? Dr Stefano Bona , Lecturer in Italian Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, on the lands of the Kauna nation, has lately been involved in creating a ‘special miniseries’ of radio programmes about Alessandro Manzoni. Now available for listening on demand are two longform interviews with Stefano Pratola at Radio Italiana 531 AM. Here Stefano Bona shares some background to this podcast project.
Announcing, with great pleasure, the winners of the 2023 ACIS Publication Prize for an established scholar, and the 2023 Jo-Anne Duggan Prize. ACIS awards both prizes every two years . In this case, each winning publication addresses the theme of mobility – a fast-evolving direction in Italian Studies research – and each brings forward a topic with clear contemporary significance.
The 12th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies will be held at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, from Wednesday 3 July to Saturday 6 July 2024. The conference theme is ‘Italian Studies for Global Challenges: Transdisciplinary Conversations’.
Open to postgraduate and early career researchers, since 2018 the ACIS Save Venice Fellowship programme has been enlivening close links between Australasia and the city of Venice. Fellowship applications were suspended in 2022, for pandemic-related reasons. So it is a special pleasure to announce that Brigette De Poi has been awarded an ACIS Save Venice Fellowship for 2023. Already living in Venice to focus on her PhD project, Brigette shares some first reflections on her contact with Save Venice thus far.
Which memories are allowed to circulate in a particular culture – and which are relegated or silenced? What political logic is at play when a certain way of remembering is spelt out, even imposed? Matthew Topp was awarded an ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship in 2020, to source archival records for his doctoral thesis, which has the working title ‘ Ars Oblivionalis : A Study of Cultural Forgetting in Renaissance Italy’. Now returned from fieldwork, he shares a brief account of his PhD project and travels.
Two promising early career scholars – Lauren Murphy and Julia Pelosi-Thorpe – were the recipients of ACIS Save Venice Fellowships. Delayed due to COVID travel restrictions, they were finally able to access their Fellowships in 2022. Here they both reflect on their time in Venice and the benefits of the Fellowship to their respective research projects.
ACIS is delighted to announce that Professor Andrea Rizzi has been appointed the new Chair of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies. He leads a renewed Management Committee with several new appointees who start their terms of office this year.