MAMMA MIA, ITALY!

All roads lead to Rome. ~ Alain de Lille (1175) 

 Italy, La Repubblica Italiana, enjoys an impressive, lengthy history and has provided a formidable mark on Western culture and cuisine. Over 60 million tourists visit Italy each year, making it the fifth most visited country in the world. Italy’s rich culture contains more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other nation on Earth – including Herculaneum, Assisi and Rome with its shrines of antiquity like the Coliseum, as well as the ancient cities of Naples and Ragusa. Rome, its capital, is one of the oldest of the world’s great cities and a favorite of visitors from around the planet who go there to enjoy its celebrated shrines, monuments, artworks and gastronomy, as well as to revel in the city's dolce vita, or "sweet life."

This blog takes a tour of the many "courses" that Italy has encountered from the distant past to the present, some more gratifying than others.

L’Antipasto. Appetizer, such as fritto misto (mixed fried shrimp, calamari, meat or vegetables depending on where you are in Italy). Here we’re tasting the Roman Empire. Italy’s past spans millennia. Before the modern era, the Roman Empire was the most notable western civilization in the world. For centuries, it was the central hub of technology, culture and architecture in the west’s ancient world, although the Greeks might dispute this. Roman engineers built about 50,000 miles of roads (which is more than the entire US Interstate system), bridges and aqueducts. At the pinnacle of its power in the first and second centuries AD, the Roman Empire covered about 2.2 million square miles; from Hadrian’s wall in cold Northern England to the Euphrates in sun-drenched Syria; from the Rhine-Danube rivers in Europe to the Black Sea; from the western North African coast to the Nile Valley in Egypt. Roman territory encircled the Mediterranean Sea. Italy’s current land area is about five percent of the vast Roman Empire’s. Historians believe as much as one-fifth of the world’s population, 60 million people (Italy's population now), were Roman citizens, with as many as 120 million folks living within the Roman Empire’s borders. 

There were well over 100 Roman Emperors (depending on how you count them), some very bad (e.g., Nero and Tiberius), some were better (e.g., Caesar Augustus and Trajan). Perhaps 20% of them were assassinated while in office; it could be rough sitting on those gilded thrones. The last Western Roman Emperor was deposed by Germanic tribes in 476. The final Eastern Roman Emperor was overthrown in 1453 by the victorious Ottoman Turks. And don’t forget almost 40 years later that one of Italy’s own, sailed ailed away from good ol’ Castile, Spain to discover The New World in October 1492. Nice work Christopher Columbus. 

Il Primo. First courses, such as Tagliatelle or Lasagna alla Bolognese (pasta with the traditional slow-cooked veal, pork, beef and a little tomato ragu.) How many shapes/types of Italian pasta are there? Italy’s primo culinary accountants estimate there are at least 350 different types of pasta.[2] 

In this Primo course we’ll be enjoying the Italian Renaissance. The Renaissance marked the transition from the darkish Middle Ages to something brighter and closer to Western Modernity. Taking a somewhat expansive view of this seminal historic period, it began in the 14th century continuing through the 17th century. Whatever its length, the Renaissance started in Florence, Italy, promoted under the patronage of the Medici family.

The Renaissance’s “new thinking” was manifest in architecture, science, literature, politics and art. Last year, celebrated the quincentenary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, the original polymath “Renaissance Man.” This year, on April 6th, we will commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael (né Raffaelio Sanzio), one of the premier artists and architects of the High Renaissance. Together with Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo form the traditional Italian trinity of great masters of the Renaissance. After beginning in Florence, the Renaissance further blossomed in the city-states of Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna and finally Rome. The world has benefited ever since.

Il Secondo. Second course, such as sogliola alla griglia, (grilled petrale sole) or cotoletta alla Milanese (bone in veal cutlet). Here we’re tasting Italy’s more recent past. After the Renaissance Italy has been transformed and modernized, along with the rest of the world despite detours and challenges. On March 17, 1861 Victor Emmanuel II became the first king of unified Italy, with considerable help from Giuseppe Garibaldi. During the inter-war years Italy succumbed to Benito Mussolini’s despotic fascism.

The new Italian Republic was born in 1946 after World War II (WWII), and its return to parliamentary democracy. Italy became a founding member of the UN, NATO, the WTO, the European Union (EU) and the G-7. Culturally speaking, can anyone forget Italy's Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s that starred actors including even a young Clint Eastwood? No. 
More seriously, on January 1, 1999 Italy was among the first members of the EU to adopt officially the Euro as its currency, and shed its Lira. It is the third largest economy in the Euro Zone. Some current information about Italy is given in the chart below.

ITALIAN FACTS AND FIGURES            

Population	60.5 million
Population growth rate	0.16%
Population 65 years and older	26.69%
Population 15-24 years	9.61%
Birth rate	7.51 births/1000 persons
Median age	45.5 years
Land area	294,140 sq. km
Coastline	7,600 km
GDP (PPP)	$2.32 trillion or €2.08 trillion
GDP/capita (PPP)	$39,637
GDP growth rate	0.4%
Inflation rate	0.5%
Unemployment rate	9.7%
Youth unemployment rate	32.2%
Public Debt/GPP	138.0%
Sources: Eurostat, CIA World Factbook, The Economist

Italy has roughly one and one-half times as many people as California. From a demographic perspective Italy’s population is stagnant and growing ever hoarier. Its median age, 45.5 years, is over 15 years older than the global average. Italy’s birth rate is nearly the lowest of any nation. People 65 years and older represent nearly 27% of the total population; population growth is virtually non-existent, an anemic 0.16%. Italy’s Age Dependency Ratio that measures the proportion of older dependents (older than 64) relative to the working-age population (age 15 to 64) is the second- highest in the world, behind Japan. Despite government programs to reverse the country’s “apocalyptically” low birth/fertility rate, it hasn’t changed much. In 2018 it declined from the previous year.

Politics and economics aside, it’s virtually impossible for a nation to grow sustainably when its population isn’t. Italy’s population growth is, at best, torpid. Unlike the Cohen Brothers’ 2007 Academy Awards Best Picture “No Country for Old Men,” Italy is filled to the brim with them. 

Geographically, Italy is a mid-sized nation with about the same land area as Arizona. In Rome a two-mile border encircles the world’s smallest nation. Vatican City is a 100-acre ecclesiastical city-state and the center of Roman Catholicism. Its population of 1,000 includes not just ordinary folks. 

Being a peninsula, Italy is often defined by its dramatic coastline, which is the 15th longest. The Adriatic Sea, Ionian Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, Ligurian Sea, Sea of Sardinia, Mediterranean Sea and Strait of Sicily surround the Italian peninsula and islands. Throughout history, Italian explorers navigators and sailors including Amerigo Vespucci, Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, have discovered many foreign lands.

Italy’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 12th highest in the world on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, and comparable to that of Mexico. Its annual macroeconomic growth has long been in the doldrums and not exceeded 2% in 18 years. Last year it was a feeble 0.4%. The nation’s per capita GDP is ranked 33rd highest by the World Bank.

Unemployment remains a relatively high 9.7%, not that surprising given lackluster economic growth. Italy’s youth unemployment also is stubbornly very elevated, more than twice the EU average. Italy remains saddled with a large public debt. This debt, relative to its GDP, ranks 6th highest in the world. Italy's debt-GDP ratio is the second highest in the EU, after Greece. 

Together with its political affairs, Italy’s macroeconomic conditions often seem to trammel its opportunities. An example is the now uncertain fate of Europe’s largest steelworks, called ILVA, located in the Southern Italian city of Taranto. The plant employs over 10,000 workers. In 2018 the facility was bought from the Italian government by multinational steel manufacturing giant ArcelorMittal, based in Luxembourg. The firm's multiple negotiations with successive Italian governments have been fraught, without final settlement.

When negotiations collapsed with the new Italian government last November ArcelorMittal said it would end its operations at ILVA. Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte visited the steelworks on Christmas Eve, attempting to be Santa bearing economic gifts. But no gifts were offered under a blast furnace, and the plant’s future remains doubtful. The government’s former Minister for Economic Development, who led the original deal for ILVA’s purchase, said the current situation is “Totally crazy. You cannot better explain the Italian crisis than to explain what is happening in ILVA.”

The challenge remains because the Italian populist Five Star Movement, one of the two controlling political parties in the current government, is adamantly opposed to ArcelorMittal and wants the government to once again take over ILVA’s operations. Which brings us to the next course. 

Il Contorno. A side dish, such as cavoletti di Bruxelles in padella (sautéed Brussel sprouts). Here we’re sipping a side order of mixed political "salad" greens. The world has been fascinated with Italian politics for a long, long time, which Italians themselves hardly view as a “side dish.” One fascination is the astounding turnover of multi-party governments and prime ministers. A high degree of fragmentation and instability, often leading to short-lived coalition governments, has been characteristic of Italian politics.

Since the end of WWII, the Republic of Italy has had 69 governments and 43 prime ministers. Impressionate. The only prime minister to serve a full five-year term since 1989 is Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-ridden, impetuous billionaire (in his beginning years, he would sing on cruise liners and sell vacuum cleaners)  and a European ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Does this make Mr. Berlusconi an appetizer for our #45? That’s food for thought. In the US and Italy Mr. Berlusconi is probably better remembered for his “bunga -bunga” parties with young women; so it goes. He has been prime minister of Italy on three occasions, starting in 1994 ending in 2011, reigning for almost 8½ years. 

One cause of this unsteadiness was Italy’s adoption of a purely proportional voting system right after WWII — meaning that seats in Parliament were given to parties in strict proportion to the votes they received, no matter how small. This resulted in many small parties, frequent and complex coalition governments and consequent political stalemates. In 1994, following a significant corruption scandal – the Tangentopoli (Kickback City) scandal - when Mr. Berlusconi was prime minister, the parliamentary voting system was altered, with damaging results to several aspects of political stability in Italy. In particular, the new reform dissolved the popular and broader-based Christian Democracy party and others, which were washed away into the Tyrrhenian Sea. After this alteration, there have been several other fruitless attempts at further reforms aimed at providing more political stability.

Over the past decade one small, fringe party – the Five Star Movement (M5S) – has evolved and grown into a major political force in Italy. The M5S was founded in 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian and blogger and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist. The M5S has been described with various representations: populist, anti-globalist, Eurosceptic and anti-establishment. The "five stars" are a reference to five proclaimed key issues for the movement: right to Internet access, environmentalism, public water, sustainable development and sustainable transport. From the beginning, Mr. Grillo and M5S members decreed that it was not a party, but a movement. Virtually all its pronouncements and messages are Web-based. The movement also advocates for direct democracy and degrowth. Hence, M5S’s strong disdain and opposition to private businesses like ArcelorMittal. 

In Italy’s 2018 general election, the M5S succeeded in becoming the largest individual party in Parliament and entered into government with the far-right Northern League. This oil-and-water coalition collapsed last summer after just a year in office and was replaced by another coalition, this time between M5S and the center-left Democratic Party. Remarkably, Giuseppe Conte has been prime minister during each of these last two Italian government coalitions. How long this alliance will last is a matter of open conjecture.  

Interestingly, a new grassroots left-wing political movement against Matteo Salvini, head of the Northern League, is forming called the “Sardine” (sardines, of course!) and they have been attracting thousands of people and protesting in the piazzas/squares of major Italian cities. Up to now they wisely refuse to become a political party because they can more easily pressure the current politicians to work harder and better.

Il Dolce. Dessert such as panna cotta, tiramisu and cannoli. Yum! Here I will be nibbling on the tasty, wide slice of Italian cuisine that thankfully migrated to America, much beyond the gorgeous Italian dolce delicacies mentioned above. I’m talking “red sauce restaurants.”

Brimmingly-full plates of fettuccine with meatballs and marinara gravy (aka, red sauce), eggplant parmigiana, garlic bread with delicious Italian olive oil, red-and-white checkered tablecloths suffused with nostalgia. These dishes among others, are primo ingredients for the beautiful cuisine that has affectionately become known on America’s main streets as red sauce Italian. There are over 63,000 Italian restaurants in the US. Oh, and let's not forget bottles of straw-flasked Chianti that is making a comeback in Italy and beyond. 

From 1900 to 1910, at least 2 million Italian immigrants passed the Statue of Liberty to Ellis Island, and other US destinations, including my dear wife’s predecessors. Like others, they dreamt of improving their lives and hoped to escape the poverty of that surrounded them in Italy. Besides a few trunks, they brought their culinary heritage and adapted it to American life. They cooked remembered Italian family recipes, and used ingredients that likely were not always accessible or attainable in the old country. Larger portions and new, savory tastes have followed. Buonissimo. 

Italy produces 5.5 million (M) tons or 14% of global processed (mostly plum) tomatoes per year. Here in the New World, California’s Central Valley produces 12.3M tons of processed tomatoes that represents 34% of world production and 95% of US production. The US enjoys being the world’s largest market for pasta, 2.7M tons per year. But on a per person basis Italians are kings and queens of the pasta dish, eating 26.0 kg (57.3lb) of pasta each year, three times as much as Americans.

Except for a finishing espresso Italiano, this completes my culinary-based overview of the Italian universe.  I mie migliori auguri per il 2020 e arrivederci...

---

[2] Pasta shapes are specifically designed to hold the sauce in the best possible way. Many regions have created their own pasta shapes: for example, bigoli (thick, noodle-like spaghetti) are from Veneto; strozzapreti (meaning, ‘priest strangler’) are from Emilia-Romagna; trofie (perfect with pesto) are from Liguria, and orecchiette (or, ‘little ears’) are from Puglia.