Is this country really a “badly run museum”?
Plus, supernatural happenings and the best pasta in Italy right now
Rachel Donadio published a tremendous feature for The New York Review of Books this week which, I must say, is some of the best English language reporting I’ve read about Italy for a very long time. In a sense, on the surface, Donadio isn’t saying anything groundbreaking in and of itself. Her chosen subject is Meloni’s “cultural revolution” and specifically the changes to Italian society that have brought her to power and which sustain her now in government. Many others have written on this topic, and many have offered generic (and usually rather superficial) observations about right-wing populism, neo-fascism and nationalism. Donadio, by contrast, is well clued-up on Italy’s history and the exentricities of life here. Instead of generic platitudes, she therefore hones in — quite rightly — on mysterious individuals such as Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, a pseudo-public intellectual and the new curator of the Venice Biennale who exhibits, in her words, an “unpredictable ideology”; or Alessandro Giuli head of MAXXI museum who has publicly set himself the task of finding a new identity for the post-fascist right. Donadio provides a breezy list of the many ways civil society is being eroded and she even finds space to take a jab at the “neocolonial” Mattei Plan for Africa (a label I’ve also used, not without controversy). Overall, this is a cynical, witty, wise and unusually well researched bit of reporting with some excellent interview soundbites to boot. So if you don’t have a subscription, do take the time to sign up for a free trial to unlock the full piece.
I feel offended, I feel mocked…. They are trying to invent out of whole cloth a model of Italianità that doesn’t match the reality of the country. They want to impose their idea of society on a society that is changing, however slowly. Because Italian society is changing and there are so many people in their thirties like me, of Chinese origin or African origin or Indian origin, who reside and live in this country. And every time we hear talk of Italianità or “Made in Italy” and of who has the right to be considered Italian or not, we laugh, but it also makes us sick to our stomachs […] This country is a badly run museum.
— Djarah Kan, a Ghanaian—Italian- writer and journalist, as quoted in the article.
Back in 2016 Maria Giuseppe Scarpulla, a middle-aged women from the small town of Trevignano Romano witnessed a miracle. One evening, after a walk around her local neighbourhood, she came home to discover that her statue of the Madonna, the Virgin Mary, was weeping tears of blood. It was, she concluded, a sign from God! Thousands flocked to the town to see the miracle for themselves. The statue was placed in a case overlooking the nearby Lake Bracciano and — lo and behold — day after day, night after night, the Madonna cried her sacred tears. This ritual went on for eight years before a local priest revealed the blood in question was in fact pig’s blood. Scarpulla was forced to leave the town and she’s now, apparently, on the run. It’s an odd story, I know, but I couldn’t help thinking about it this week on reading the news that the Vatican has revised its protocols regarding supernatural phenomena. This space has been unregulated for decades and in fact internal rules have not changed since 1978. This is therefore major news: the Vatican is now actively asserting more centralised authority to ensure people like Scarpulla are less able to accrue fame and money for themselves at the expense of the Church. The BBC has published a surprisingly sarcastic report on the matter which is well worth a read to get a sense of the full details: “and so the Vatican, an institution peppered with mysticism, and which still communicates via smoke signals when electing a new pope, will be hoping its new rules can regulate claims of the supernatural.”
Have you ever spent time in an Italian hospital? Have you ever spent time in a British hospital? How, I wonder, did the food compare? This might sound a somewhat trivial question: this week, however, the novelist Viola Di Grado wrote an enigmatic piece for The Guardian in which she outlined her own rather outlandish theory on the matter. According to Di Grado, patients in the UK are treated to a kind of multicultural culinary smorgasbord in NHS wards, which, based on the author’s experience, is an integral part of the healing process. “In deeply Catholic yet happy-go-lucky Italy”, by contrast, she sees a “strict Christian morality” which requires the sick person “to immediately purge themselves of any lust for worldly pleasures on entering the hospital.” Chewing on rubbery meat and boiled vegetables, the patient undertakes “the traditional act of fioretto that they teach us as kids: you promise to the saint of your choice that if they grant your wish, you’ll sacrifice something you really like.” To be honest, none of Di Grado’s observations reflect my own personal experience, but this is still a provocative and unusual piece of cross-cultural commentary that captures some intriguing subjective-truths along the way! So here’s the link.
Arts and culture: Some Weekend Listening
I’ve got a podcast to recommend you all this week by Jonathan Zenti, one of Italy’s most talented multimedia journalist-reporters and long-time collaborator with Internazionale, RAI the BBC and others. Zenti’s new series, which premiered back in March, is called TOTALE and it’s dedicated to “the new cultural hegemony that’s establishing itself” which, he jokes, in Gattopardian fashion “is the same as the last one.” TOTALE is a look at “the effects of ‘total capitalism’ on our lives; explained well and experienced badly.” If this sounds a rather broad remit, well, it is. But somehow the format works. Every Saturday, Zenti uploads a new episode dedicated to a particular aspect of contemporary Italian life: for one hour he offers a kind of spoken essay, presenting his own eloquent criticism of Meloni’s government intertwined with a series of soundbites, interviews and audio clippings. So far, he’s tackled ‘inheritance’ ‘rent and housing’, ‘police violence’ and ‘journalism’ among other issues. This week’s episode, released on 17 May, addresses ‘culture’, and while I’ve not yet listened this is 100% going straight on my Sunday house cleaning playlist. Subscribe via Spotify for episode-by-episode updates [ITA only, I’m afraid].
One piece in particular has been doing the rounds this week in ENG language Italophile circles, so you may have encountered this one already. I’m talking, of course, about The New York Times’s ‘25 Essential Pasta Dishes to Eat in Italy’. The title here is inauspicious I know, but trust me this is not your normal listicle. The jury is made up of some serious food writers and chefs; Davide Palluda, the chef and owner of All’Enoteca restaurant, Stefano Secchi, the chef and a co-owner of New York City’s Rezdôra, Karima Moyer-Nocchi, the Umbria-based culinary historian, Roberta Corradin, a writer and journalist, and the one and only Emiko Davies. These are not just media hacks, they’re experts in their field and their tips deserve real consideration. The list itself, to be clear, is not just comprised of recipes, it’s more like an informal gastronomic guide to some of the best places to eat pasta in Italy right now. Which is precisely what makes it so interesting. Travelling this summer? You’d better make your reservations right now. Staying at home? Feast your eyes on the photos and enjoy some armchair travel.
Recipe of the week: Roasted Pepper & Anchovy Rigatoni
Well - with all that talk of delicious carbs - I had no choice but to share a pasta dish this week. Speaking personally, I generally find myself prepping endless pestos this time of year: genovese, trapanese, cetarese, eoliano not to mention more modern concoctions such as lemon and almond or walnut and rocket. I’ve written about this many times before, so I won’t be repeating myself here. Instead, I want to share something that’s been on my own ‘to cook list’ for a while; an entirely non-traditional recipe proposed by the team at Mob kitchen. ‘Roasted Pepper & Anchovy Rigatoni’ is a sort of ‘stick-it-in-a-blender’ and go kind of arrangement. The cook Sophie Wyburd uses pre roasted peppers to cut down on the cooking time, and she adds capers, red wine vinegar and anchovies to provide some umami and acid balance to the final product. With just 25 g of parmesan this is a mile away from your cloying jarred pesto. It’s a 15-minute, mid-week meal that — to my eyes — looks like a perfect fix for the hot months ahead. Here’s the link.
I’m Jamie Mackay, a UK-born, Italy-based writer, working at the interfaces of journalism, criticism, poetry, fiction, philosophy, travelogue and cultural-history. I set up ‘The Week in Italy’ to make a space to share a regular overview of the debates and dilemmas, innovations and crises that sometimes pass under the radar of our overcrowded news feeds, to explore politics, current affairs, books, arts and food. If you’re a regular reader, and you enjoy these updates, I hope you’ll consider becoming a supporter for EUR 5.00 per month. I like to think of it as a weekly catch-up chat over an espresso. Alternatively, if you’d like to send a one-off something, you can do so via PayPal using this link. Grazie!