We are what we eat

When we talk about the food of the future, very “daring” scenarios are sometimes evoked. According to some experts, in fact, the food problems of the future will be solved by insects, which are already consumed today in 1400 species by two billion people (especially in Asia). Insects are rich in protein, fat, iron and zinc. A good alternative to meat and less polluting ... provided you have the "stomach" to put them in your mouth. Extreme gastronomy, which is easy to consider a curiosity. Less easy to imagine dishes based on insects on our tables. After all, when it comes to food we are very traditionalists and before putting something unknown into our mouths we think about it not once, but a hundred times.

In short, one cannot help but eat, but human beings have evolved up to the present day also thanks to an instinctive fear: that linked to food. As Alberto Grandi tells us in his latest essay entitled "History of our food fears" (Aboca, 2023, pp. 252, also e-book) it is experience, the memory of what happened after ingesting a food that determines trust or distrust in him.

The possibility of taking toxic substances with a food – because it is badly preserved or unknown – is always very real and it is therefore natural that every living being has developed automatic systems and processes to evaluate the potential risks inherent in the act of eating. In short, many food fears today are just the latest version of fears that man has always had.

An example of what we are saying? Tomato. Can we think of Italian cuisine without this food? Absolutely not today. Yet, this fruit until the discovery of America was unknown on our continent. After the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World many products crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Europe aboard Spanish and Portuguese ships. The list is long and perhaps surprising: corn, potatoes, many varieties of beans, peanuts, hot peppers, some varieties of peppers, some types of pumpkin, cocoa and vanilla and, of course, tomatoes. The impact of these foods on European food culture has been enormous.

However, the affirmation of American products in European cuisine was not immediate. The tomato, for example, was initially used only as an ornamental plant and it was believed that its excessive consumption could be harmful to health . Only starting from the eighteenth century and even more in the nineteenth century did it become a staple food, present on every self-respecting table not only in Italy but all over the world. The same fate for corn and potatoes which only long after their arrival in Europe became part of the popular diet, as an alternative to bread and wheat flour-based products, and which proved to be fundamental in definitively defeating the scourge of hunger.

Corn was kept away from the table because it was initially used only for animals and therefore only suitable for them. Instead, it was one of the most ruthless conquistadors, Francisco Pizarro, who brought the potato to our continent in 1535 where it was viewed with great suspicion. First of all it was food from Indios, who according to the Europeans of the time didn't even have a soul. Imagine if what they ate was to be trusted. Furthermore, there was no trace of the potato in the Bible and therefore it was better to starve and wait for the manna from heaven. In the beginning many ate it as it was, without cooking, with catastrophic results. Another dangerous custom linked to ignorance in the face of this novelty from overseas was that of consuming the very poisonous leaves of the plant. Thus the rumor spread that the potato was a little bewitched and had evil virtues. Better to avoid it and keep it at most as an ornamental plant. So for a long time potatoes were used best for animals or were consumed by those who wanted to do penance, such as the barefoot Carmelites or the Carthusians. Or they were served for the poorest and most derelict in hospices and hospitals. However, when hunger is involved, things change and one must make a virtue of necessity. Thus, when the fate of our poor tuber seemed to be to fatten pigs, the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) occurred in which Europe was reduced to an immense cemetery amidst massacres and epidemics. The potato, resistant and easy to grow at all latitudes, became the lifeline for many exhausted by hunger, especially in Holland, Prussia, England and Ireland. People learned to cook it and famines thus became less frequent and devastating thanks to this precious food.

Alberto Grandi retraces these and many other curious events, from the fear of swine leprosy (a non-existent disease), to that of white flour, up to the stigmatization of GMOs, insects and cultivated meat, keeping together science, superstition, politics, economy and ecology, because today producing food for eight billion people is not just a health issue, it is above all a theme that puts the salvation of the entire planet at stake . But above all the author - animator of the podcast DOI-Denominazione di Origine Inventata, in which he retraced the history of Italian cuisine teaching us to distinguish the truth from advertising narratives - shows us how food fears have conditioned the economic and social development of the various regions in the world , with particular attention to Europe and in general to what we call the West.

Truly “we are what we eat”, as the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach said, because what is more natural, more cultural, more social and more political than eating?