9781422277447

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

Introduction

P eople are always looking for ways tostayyoung—theystick to a healthy diet, exercise regularly, and get plenty of sleep. No strategy works forever, but the Italians may have found the best one yet: Enjoy your dinner! An Italian saying goes, “ A tavola non si invecchia .” In En- glish that means, “At the table, no one grows old.” Maybe that’s why Italians like tospendhours lingering over their meals. Italians have a long history of having not only an appetite for food, but for life as well. Italy produced the famous explorers Christopher Columbus,MarcoPolo, andAmerigo Vespucci (for whom the Americas were named). The Renaissance—a time that put new emphasis on art, science, andculture—startedinItaly

inthe1300s.During theRenaissance, aperiodof a fewcenturies following theMiddleAgesinEurope,Michelan- gelopaintedtheceilingof theSistine Chapel in Vatican City (in Rome), and Leonardo da Vinci painted the MonaLisa ,probablythemost famous painting in the world. The musical formof operawas born inFlorence, Italy.Andthe ItalianscientistGalileo Galileiadvocatedacontroversial idea (at the time, anyway): that theEarth revolved around the Sun. At the time, most Italians did not believe (or even understand) that idea, and most of them prob- ably did not care one way or the other. To them, the Sun and the Earth worked in a partnership to do the most important job: grow food. For any Italian—peasant or