I think people vastly underestimate how much people moved around in the past. Not just from mass migrations, but also individuals just ending up in places. An army was basically a moving city making it’s way around for years if not decades. New trade routes opening often meant people moving across the world to either end just to handle logistics. A fad started by one individual eventually turns into a staple, a tradition, a culture.
Comment on 2 North American 4 you has been created
naught101@lemmy.world 1 day agoMigration and transplanting of cultures has massively increased in the last 100 years though… Shit changed a lot slower in the past.
Greddan@feddit.org 22 hours ago
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If you went back to the time of Leonardo DaVinci you wouldn’t find tomatoes anywhere in Italy. Tomatoes are indigenous to Central America yet today it seems almost impossible to imagine Italian food without tomatoes! The introduction of tomatoes to Italian cooking might’ve been more gradual but the transformation was far greater than anything we see now.
person420@lemmynsfw.com 19 hours ago
I always laugh when I hear this. You don’t have to imagine Italian food without tomatoes, you could just go to Italy. This whole idea that Italian food uses lots of tomato sauce, or tomatoes in general is a very italian-american thing. There’s tons of Italian food, I might even say the majority of, that doesn’t use tomatoes. It’s really only southern Italy that uses tomatoes. That’s why it became so popular. During the migration to America, it was mostly southern Italians (Sicily, Calabria).
Like this meme, the idea that Italians use tomatoes in everything is mostly an American thing.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Pasta dishes containing tomatoes are eaten in every region of Italy. The two most recognizable Italian dishes in the world are easily spaghetti marinara and pizza Margherita. Northern Italian food, with its cured meats, hard cheeses, risottos, and stews are far less well known and recognizable as Italian cuisine (not to mention distinct from French, Swiss, and Alpine German cuisine) to anyone outside of Europe, not just Americans.
person420@lemmynsfw.com 18 hours ago
Traditionally spaghetti is a side dish and while true can be served with a tomato sauce, it’s nothing like you see in italian-american dishes, and more commonly used with lighter sauces.
And a margherita pizza, while very much a thing was really only invented at the end of the 19th century and is just one of many styles of neopolitan pizza.
My point isn’t that they don’t use tomatoes in Italy, it’s that this idea that Italian food = heavy tomato sauce is more of an American thing.
Go to Italy and ask for spaghetti and meatballs and see how many restaurants actually have that on the menu.