Abstract
In early October of 2019, a menu alteration at Bologna’s Feast of the Patron Saint provoked outrage among Italy’s political and media classes. Interpreted by some as an attempt to rewrite national history and by others as evidence of a city-wide conversion to Islam, the controversy stemmed from a municipal decision to commission the manufacture of tortellini – a stuffed pasta typical of the city – filled with chicken rather than the more conventional pork. Critics of this decision collectively pointed to a single source as proof that the substitution violated tradition: a 16th-century recipe by the papal chef Bartolomeo Scappi, which many claimed served as the blueprint for all subsequent tortellini. A closer look at Scappi’s text, however, complicates such assertions – first, because Scappi does not use any pork in his recipe, and second, because he does use chicken. In this presentation, I examine how, in the context of food and communal identity, the past is mobilised to shape the future, drawing on empirical research conducted in Bologna between 2022 and 2023. Using the notion of hauntology and the conceptual and methodological framework of Science and Technology Studies, I explore how food heritage is constructed, maintained, and instrumentalised in the present – that is, how the past is made in the contemporary, both to make sense of who we have been and to shape who we wish to become.
Presenters
Sahar TavakoliPostdoctoral Researcher, Philosophy, University of Milan, Agrigento, Italy
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Science and Technology Studies, Empirical Research, Italy, Islam, Hauntology
