I recently finished Pasta, Pane, Vino and Grape, Olive, Pig, two wonderful books about Mediterranean food culture, both written by Matt Goulding. They’re similar in format: region-by-region explorations of various foods and the people who produce them. From mozzarella in Puglia to paella in Valencia, and everything in between.
What’s great about these two books, aside from causing me to salivate as I think about all the wonderful food I could be eating instead of reading and blogging, is just how different the cuisines of Italy and Spain are both against each other and within each country. You just simply don’t eat in Puglia what you would in Tuscany any more than you’d eat the same things in Italy and Spain.
Yet, there is something unifying about both books. It’s the way the food is sourced, discussed, and enjoyed. Whether it’s eating the best hand-made pasta in the world in Bologna or world-class bluefin tuna in Cádiz, food is integral to life in these places and lets us know who these people think they are. The Neapolitans believe their pizza is the best ever made, and this says something about them as people; the Basques and Catalans have used cooking as a means of reminding the world that they are in fact not Spanish.
What I love most about these books is the emphasis on the local, the reminder that food is a reflection of the people who make and eat it, and the fact that food nourishes us in ways beyond basic sustenance. It is a part of the Mediterranean and its peoples, and it allows for good arguments over who can do more miraculous things with pigs, grains, rice, grapes, olives, and any other edible gem that the Mediterranean produces.
There are so many other Mediterranean cuisines that I hope Matt Goulding writes about: Portuguese, French, Croatian, Moroccan, Lebanese, Turkish, Greek, just to name a few (but certainly not all). Or maybe I will write about them some day. But I’d have to eat more food first.
Robert Clines, Ph.D. 