Food practices and rituals were used by immigrants to construct the ideological representation of the Italian family by idealizing their ethnic origins. Ethnic food produced an appearance of traditionalism, and the rituals related to the sharing of food were of considerable importance in shaping the concepts of family and domesticity of Italo-Americans, for whom the ritual and ceremonial conviviality of baptisms, marriages and funerals, etc. played a central role in strengthening ties of kinship, friendship, and neighbourhood.
In America, compulsory education and paid employment outside the family’s control rapidly removed sons and daughters from the family sphere which, in Italy, had been simultaneously the locus of socialization, production
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This is because they reconcile traditions with the changes made necessary by the new environment, or by external constraints that force people to change their eating habits as well. Consider, for example, the recipes revisited during the period of autarky in fascist Italy; the surrogate foods consumed during wars; the creativity of housewives able to create meals with the few ingredients available (Flandrin, 1997). To illustrate how changes come about in eating habits through migration, now considered is the phenomenon of Italian internal migration from the South to the cities and factories of the North-West of the country during the second post-war …show more content…
Pasta initially accompanied soup and rice, and then largely replaced them; and olive oil did likewise with butter and lard. Tomato sauce became the condiment most widely used in the country. Symmetrically apparent were changes in the dietary habits of immigrants from southern Italy; changes that altered not only eating patterns but also everyday routines. The pace of life and work dictated by the factories, which was profoundly different from that of agricultural work, especially as regards the shift system, also imposed different eating schedules and mealtimes. Some foods become too heavy and spicy for those who had to work at certain times at a certain