Revolution in the Italian Kitchen Marinetti, Futurism and Avant-garde cuisine Lunch-time talk, Clare Hall, Cambridge (UK), 29.1.2009 Marja Härmänmaa, University of Helsinki, Finland

Futurism: the centenary  The Futurist manifesto the 20th of February, 1909  Writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944)  Artistic and literary movement  One of the so-called historical Avant-garde movements (Cubism and Surrealism)  Glorification of technology and future  Rejection of past, history, traditions

”arte – vita” / ”art – life” Introduction of everyday life in arts Arts in direct contact with life Arts must be comprehensible to a wider public  End of the intellectual in the ”ivory – tower”  Socially and politically engaged artists and intellectuals   

Extra-artistic activity  Simultaneous sports  Politics  Political manifesto in 1913  Political party in 1918  Participation to the foundation of the Fascist movement in 1919

 …and food!

Marinetti and eating  First a metaphor of conquest   

A play Re Baldoria (King Guzzle, 1910) People eat the king = revolution They vomit him = birth of a new society

 Parody of romantic metaphor of ”drinking” = enjoying  Eating becomes a new form of art

Eating as an artistic manifestation  In 1910 in Trieste the Futurists enjoy the first reversed dinner starting with the dessert and ending up with appetizers  In 1930 in Milan the restaurant ”La Penna d’Oca” (Goose’s feather) offers the first Futurist dinner  In 1930 the manifesto of Futurist cuisine  In 1931 in Turin, the Futurist restaurant ”La Taverna Santopalato” (The Tavern of Holy Palate)  In 1932 The Futurist Cookbook

The Tavern of Holy Palate  Parody of the Lateran pact between Mussolini and the pope Pius XI (1929)  A place for artistic manifestations, exhibitions, poetry reading ect.  Decorated by an architect Nicolai Diulgheroff and a painter Fillìa  Interior: a box covered by aluminium

The Tavern of Holy Palate

The Futurist cuisine in the world during the 1930s

 Conferences about the Futurist cuisine and Futurist dinners in many cities in Italy and abroad (Paris, Tunisi, Budapest, Sofia, Istanbul…)  At the Fascist culture institute in Brescia and in Cremona  Newspapers articles about the Futurist cuisine in Sweden

The different meanings of the Futurist cuisine  Artistic manifestation:  ”the best artistic joke of the century”

 Political dimension:  promotion of national products  skeptisism towards the international situation

 Social dimension:  healthy diet

The Europe of the 1930s  Healthy citizens for the new mass society:  Prohibition laws  Sports

 Growing nationalism -> WW II  The League of the Nations issued sanctions against Italy in 1936 after the conquest of Ethiopia

Against the pasta  ”the absurd gastronomic religion” Marinetti  Made of foreign wheat  Italian rice  Antivirile, for a full stomach destroyed all the interest towards a female body  Pasta eaters are melancholic, slow and peaceful

Radio transmission from the Goose’s feather (1930)

 ”Although pasta is delicious, it is a passéist (outdated) dish, for it makes people dull, gives a wrong idea of nutrition values, makes people skeptical, slow, heavy and pessimistic. In addition, it is patriotic to eat rice.” Marinetti

Reactions ”pro pasta”  Foreign press reported that Marinetti wants to banish pasta from the Italian kitchen  In L’Aquila women signed a petition ”pro pasta”  In Naples, parades to save pasta

Meal as an artistic experience  All the 5 senses:  touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing

 Table decorated according ”the original harmony”:  plates, glasses and decorations must match with the dishes

 Special lighting:  colour of the light  switching lights on and off

 Special clothing of the waiters:  a collar made of bright blue celluloid

  

Different odeurs before the meal Poetry reading during the meals Music:  suddenly a jazz band starts to play  Joséphine Baker danced during a meal in Paris

 No forks or knives were allowed, if touching the food was considered an artistic experience

”A tactile machine”  A rectangular box  Covered by tin foil, red silk and black velvet  Specially invented to accompany some dishes  While eating, you touch the box and feel the different materials

”Aerovivanda” ”Aerofood” (Fillìa)  On the plate black olives, fennels’ heart, kumquats  On the left hand side a tactile machine  Waiters spray on the neck perfume of carnation  From the kitchen comes simultaneously Bach’s music and aeroplane’s noice

Aesthetic dishes

   

Importance of the colour of the material The shape of the materials Originality of the dish ”plastic complexes”

”The dismayed sausages under the first snow and the zig-zag of the spinachs”

Pollo FIAT / FIAT Chicken

”Carneplastico” ”Plastic meat” (Fillìa)  Masterpiece of the Futurist cuisine  ”synthetic interpretation of the Italian kitchen gardens, gardens and meadows”  In the middle of the plate, a cylinder made of roasted veal  The cylinder filled with 11 different cooked vegetables  Honey on the top of the cylinder  On the bottom: a ring made of sausages on golden balls made of chicken meat

”a Man acts as he eats”  Eating affects:  the creativity of artists  the fertility and the aggressiveness of the race

 The target of the culinary revolution:  Develop dishes that make the Italians corageous and optimistic towards the future

 The Futurist cookbook published in 1932 when the Western world struggled with the economic crisis  Futuristic solution: ”optimism at the table!”

Eating and international politics  The wrong diet has an influence upon the international politics  ”If every official meal starts with a tasteless soup in which 4-5 balls of pasta are desperately floating and ends with a trembling jellyish dessert, suitable for the palate of a sick person, it is logic that politicians cannot take any significant decisions.” Marinetti

The Official Futurist Lunch  To avoid:  The embarrasing silence caused by the hostility among the guests  The rigidity of the diplomatic formality  The moping because of the unresolved international problems and of the disputes about borders  The banality of the traditional dishes

To abolish the formalities  After the aperitives arrives The Amuser  The Amuser does not belong to any political party or a diplomatic corps  He is a young aristocratic ”dandy”  Famous for his obscene jokes  He whispers three jokes to his neighbour  While the laugh goes around the table, milk and tapioca-soup is served from a bowl of a monastery

Three courses plus dessert  1. The Cannibals come to an agreement in Geneva  2. The League of the Nations  3. The Steady Agreement  4. The Dessert

1. The Cannibals come to an agreement in Geneva  On the plate several pieces of raw meat that are to dipped in different sauces  The sauces are made of oil, vinegar, honey, pepper, ginger, sugar, butter and Barolo-wine

2. The League of the Nations  Black small salamis and chocolate pastries swim in a creme made of egg and vanilla  Meanwhile a 12-years old black boy tickles the ladies feet and pinches their buttocks

3. The Steady Agreement

 A castle made of nougat of different colours  In the castle, tiny bombs of nitroglycerin explode filling the air with a smell of a battle

4. The Dessert  For a half an hour the butler keeps coming to the dining room and with many excuses asks that the guests wait for a while longer for the exotic fruits coming from Africa and saying that the delay is due to problems with cars and railwayconnections  And that the beautifully decorated ice cream cake just collapsed in the kitchen

 Instead of the fruits, arrives a drunkard picked up from the street, who wants to have more to drink  He is promised to be given the best wines of Italy if he will talk for two hours about disarmament, problems related to international agreements and to the economic crisis

Futurism, now?  The concept of spatial and temporal simultaneity -> mobile phones and the Internet  The linguistic reform -> use of mathematical sings -> Italian text messages  The Futurist cuisine -> aesthetic dishes -> nouvelle cuisine  Considering the actual economic situation, should we check the menu of the UN?