Pages of the Past

The Future of Food, In the Past

The inter-war period (1918-1939) saw the rise of both Futurism and Fascism in Italy. Futurism, an artistic movement, sought to overturn tradition in all its forms in the name of progress, while Fascism, a far-right autocratic political ideology, was interested in power and Italian national supremacy. Fascist food policy, especially Mussolini’s push for self-sufficiency in the 1930s, viewed food and eating as inherently political. The Futurists, simultaneously, argued that it was inherently artistic. These two perspectives on the symbolic nature of food converged, unusually enough, in a joint battle against spaghetti, made famous by F.T. Marinetti’s 1932 The Futurist Cookbook.

The Meaning of Eating (or Not)

The interplay between these artistic and political movements is instructive. When consolidating his power, Mussolini and the Fascists used food policy to unite the population into one culturally homogenous unit, assert control over them, and bind them to the burgeoning regime–they believed that eating was inherently political. During the same period, the Futurist movement was also recognizing the symbolic value of food, and used food as a medium to communicate their philosophy of using technology to reinstate Italy as a global power not seen since the Roman Empire.

A “Cookbook,” After All?

Ostensibly a list of recipes and banquet ideas, F.T. Marinetti’s The Futurist Cookbook reflects the Futurist’s total rejection of tradition and embrace the modern, using theatric acts such as dousing the diner with cologne, serving literally explosive meals, requiring diners to forcefully blow a trumpet after each bite, dressing diners in various tactile materials and having them eat in the dark, or serving meals in an airplane cockpit.

The Futurists as “Anti-pasta”

Its most provocative suggestion, however, and the one it is most remembered for today, was the abolition of pasta. This scandalous proposition, while couched in “modern” quasi-scientific/nutritional or artistic language, was merely a reflection of fascist food policy. Striving for autarky in wheat production, the regime needed to reduce domestic consumption in addition to waging a “War on Foreign Wheat.” 

Whether cookbook, performance art, self-promotion, political manifesto, or satire, Marinetti’s bombastic work gives us a unique window into the grim food history of 1930’s Italy and foreshadows the calamity that soon followed.

Sources

Callegari, Danielle. “The Politics of Pasta: La Cucina Futurista and the Italian Cookbook in History.” California Italian Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, eScholarship Publishing, University of California, Jan. 2013.

Griffiths, Jennifer. “Marisa Mori’s Edible Futurist Breasts.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies, vol. 12, no. 4, University of California Press, Jan. 2012, pp. 20–26.

Helstosky, Carol. “Garlic and Oil : Politics and Food in Italy.” Berg eBooks, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005.

---. “Time Changes Everything.” The Taste of Art: Cooking, Food, and Counterculture in Contemporary Practices, 1st ed., University of Arkansas Press, 2017, pp. 45–59.

Jensen, Richard. “Futurism and Fascism.” History Today, no. 11, Nov. 1995, p. 35.

Marks, Thomas. “On the Futurist Cookbook | Apollo Magazine.” Apollo Magazine, 8 Apr. 2021, www.apollo-magazine.com/f-t-marinetti-futurist-cookbook.

Wheaton, Barbara Ketchum. “Cookbooks as Resources for Social History.” Food in Time and Place, University of California Press, 2014, pp. 276–99.