Food and locality: heritagization and commercial use of the past

This chapter reconstructs the birth and early development of food narratives built around the relationship between food and locality. These first developed in France in the 18th and 19th centuries, becoming common throughout Europe as of the early 20th century. Focusing on the Italian case within the European context, the chapter highlights three main points: the ethnocentric character of regional cuisine classification during Fascism; the role of marketing in “inventing” territorial food identities; and the “nostalgic turn” in the commercial promotion of “genuine” foods. In its concluding remarks the chapter argues for a deconstruction of any essentialisation of the food/locality relationship