Fascist foodways: Ricettari as propaganda for grain production and sexual reproduction

Abstract

Food connects people and land, a link that the Italian Fascist regime exploited through their seizure of local culinary culture for the promotion of national demographic goals. This article traces the connections between the regime’s concurrent drives for food production and sexual reproduction. It will show the propagandistic potential of recipes, and also the limits of top-down dietary change under dictatorship. Ricettari, propagandistic recipe pamphlets, blended public politics and private practices into a heady cocktail, one that cast autarkic cookery and sexual reproduction as valuable contributions to the Fascist state. These documents establish a clear link between the regime’s demographic policy and the autarkic campaigns in favor of Italian grain production. Cooking, the professed subject of ricettari, conveyed political neutrality—it falsely marked the documents as feminine and innocuous. So too did design: small and light, these stapled leaflets could be easily rolled up and stuck in an apron pocket. Portability thus insured that these documents could cross the threshold from the public rally to the private kitchen. Once there, they could directly address women, and attempt to modify their daily habits in ways that would change the body from the inside out. At stake in the ricettari lies a broader contribution to Food Studies in terms of food and politics: this unique form of ephemera reveals that the Italian Fascist regime took a pronatalist approach to cuisine.

Keywords:

• Fascism
• cookbook
• nationalism
• recipe
• propaganda
• gender
• Italy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Examples include Gino Boccasile, Mangiate Riso (Eat Rice) ricettario text, 1935, published by Ente Nazionale Risi (National Rice Board), 7.5 by 6.5 inches, p. 2. (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, ITAL XB1992.1821). Emilio Dahò, Lievito Dahò Ricettario per dolci. (Dahò Yeast Recipe Pamphlet for Desserts) ricettario, 1934, published by Emilio Dahò, Milan, 4.75 by 6.8 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.1821). Emida, Tapioca e fecole, note e ricette. (Tapioca and Starch, Notes and Recipes) ricettario, c. 1933, published by Fratelli Mosca and Emilio Dahò, 7 by 5 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.1818). Fabbriche Riunite Amido Glucosio Destrina, Le cento ricette maizena. (One Hundred Cornflour Recipes) ricettario, c. 1925, published by Vaghi & Mascheroni, Milan, 7 by 5 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.2149). Italo Zetti, Maizena: la chiave della buona cucina. (Cornflour: the Key to Good Cooking), ricettario, 1950, published by Pietro Vero, Milan, 6 by 8 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.1804). Pisonis, Per ben cucinare! Ricettario pratico conpreziose notizie per la buona cucina. (Cooking well! Practical Recipe Book with Precise Information for the Good Kitchen.) c. 1930s, published by Luigi Conte, Genoa, 8 by 6 inches. (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.2174)

2 Milanese ricettari account for the majority: Emilio Dahò, Lievito Dahò Ricettario per dolci. (Dahò Yeast Recipe Pamphlet for Desserts) ricettario, 1934, published by Emilio Dahò, Milan, 4.75 by 6.8 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.1821), Fabbriche Riunite Amido Glucosio Destrina, Le cento ricette maizena. (One Hundred Cornflour Recipes) ricettario, c. 1925, published by Vaghi, Milan, 7 by 5 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.2149). Italo Zetti, Maizena: la chiave della buona cucina. (Cornflour: the Key to Good Cooking), ricettario, 1950, published by Pietro Vero, Milan, 6 by 8 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.1804).

3 For newsreels, see “Italia Agricola,” July 1931. Giornale Luce B. Archivio Luce. Film code B0307. July 1931. For documentary, see “Il lavoro in risaia,” 1938. Archivio Luce, Film code D065708.

4 Rice propaganda attempted to counter the masculine prestige associated with meat and protein by leveraging dietics to argue that, although it might have fewer calories, rice was also more digestible. To cheaply power a military body, ricettari argued, fighters should eat rice. See “Il riso italiano” chart in Figure 5.

5 We see this bid for control in domestic literature and didactic newsreels that aimed to teach regime-approved cooking methods and childrearing practices. For regime control over the insides of homes via prescriptive domestic literature, see L’organizzazione scientifica del lavoro, ed. “Note di economia domestica.” Domus, February 1937, xvi-xxx. Domus, August 1939. Milan: Editoriale Domus Società Anonima and Domus, ed. 1937. Il libro di casa 1938. Rome: Cirio. For regime control over the insides of bodies via foodways and maternal care via didactic newsreels, see La Protezione della Stirpe. 1933 Rome: Istituto Nazionale Luce and Alle Madri d’Italia. 1935. Directed by Pietro Francisci. Rome: Istituto Nazionale Luce.

6 Emilio Dahò, Lievito Dahò Ricettario per dolci. (Dahò Yeast Recipe Pamphlet for Desserts) ricettario, 1934, published by Emilio Dahò, Milan, 4.75 by 6.8 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.1821)

7 See Alimenti Dahò Monografie: Il riso, note e ricette (Dahò Foods: Monograph: Rice, notes and recipes) c. 1935, published by Emilio Dahò, Milan, 8 by 6 inches. (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, ITAL XB1992.1819).

8 See Amalia Moretti Foggia, 200 suggerimenti per … questi tempi difficili. Milan: Sonzogno, 1943, Desinaretti per … questi tempi. Milan: Sonzogno, 1944, Ricettario per I tempi difficili. Milan: Sonzogno, 1942, Ricette per tempi eccezionali. Milan: Sonzogno, 1941.

9 See Gino Boccasile, Mangiate Riso (Eat Rice) ricettario text, 1935, published by Ente Nazionale Risi (National Rice Board), 7.5 by 6.5 inches, pp. 3-4. (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, ITAL 2XB1992.1798). Also see Pisonis, Per ben cucinare! Ricettario pratico conpreziose notizie per la buona cucina. (Cooking well! Practical Recipe Book with Precise Information for the Good Kitchen.) c. 1930s, published by Luigi Conte, Genoa, 8 by 6 inches. (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.2174). Emida, Tapioca e fecole, note e ricette. (Tapioca and Starch) ricettario, c. 1933, published by Fratelli Mosca, 7 by 5 inches (Wolfsonian Institute, Miami, XB1992.1818).

10 Istituto Centrale di Statistica del Regno d’Italia (ISTAT). 1942. “Razionamento: Tav. VII. Generi alimentari razionati e tesserati” in Compendio Statistico Italiano 1943. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 116.

11 Women’s almanacs, like the Almanacco della Donna Italiana, produced by private publishing companies, like Bemporad and Marzocco, include articles written on behalf of Fascist food policy boards, like the National Rice Board and the Grain Consortium. In recurrent calls from 1935 to 1942 for women to use the ricettari they receive at Fascist rallies and festivals, they evidence the regime’s continued enthusiasm for this publication program and women’s disinterest. For characteristic examples, see Almanacco della donna italiana 1936. Rome: Bemporad and Almanacco della donna italiana 1941. Florence: Marzocco. For counter-reactions written as firsthand accounts, see Angela Baldi. Testimony of Angela Baldi, 1903-1982. Transcript of manuscript MP/T 01087, Archivio dei Diari, Pieve Santo Stefano, Italy, 1997 and Antonietta Chierici. Testimony of Antonietta Chierici “Mia madre: una donna dell’Emilia,”1920-1960. Transcript of manuscript MP/Adn2 05024, Archivio dei Diari, Pieve Santo Stefano, Italy.