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PrintItalian Cuisine (r)Evolution
Giovanni’s, which opened toward the end of 2009, offers a comfortable and cozy dining room, but with plenty of room for larger groups.
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America has long had a love affair with Italian cooking. That’s easy to understand. It’s too delicious and comforting and sensual to resist. Our picture is of pizza or spaghetti with meatballs; candles in basket-wrapped chianti bottles; maybe eggplant or chicken parmesean (with great disparity among the spellings of the cheese from Parma). But getting a handle on the multi-faceted explosion of what is happening in the world of contemporary Italian cuisine takes some thought and reflection.
A Taste of History
Between the 1880s and 1920 the population of Italian American immigrants mushroomed from just a few thousand to four million. During those turbulent decades, Italy was stressed by the unification of its city states. Many wars and rebellions caused economic pressures, particularly in the agricultural southern regions of the country.
The United States was romanticized by those prospective immigrants for its images of vast open spaces, cheap land, and welcoming arms, but a different reality awaited them upon arrival. Mostly this Italian population settled in cities along the East Coast or in the growing state of California. Coming from agricultural backgrounds, they often lacked skills for urban living. Although many eager workers found available jobs at menial labor, some utilized their skills in the culinary world. They started little neighborhood restaurants. This was the beginning of Italian American gastronomy.
Unique regional cuisines were formative in the history of Italy, influenced by the neighboring Greeks, French, Africans, Austrians, and Etruscans. Historically, Italy was a passage for the Christian crusaders to the Middle East and voyages on the Silk Road to China and the Orient. The climate diversity, from mountains and plains to sea coasts, and from north to south, was great. Each city state and region was as described in a phrase popular today, a locavore community. Residents built their lives around what they had at hand.
