American Media and the Taste for Italy: Placing the Construction of Italian Food Identity in a Transatlantic Setting, 1970s–2020s

The article examines the constant interplay between Americanizing and Italianizing dynamics that have shaped transnational representations of Italian identity and food culture. Building on the existing literature on the mutual influences between Italy and the U.S., my contribution explores how American media and Italian American cultural mediators—from Marcella Hazan to Stanley Tucci—have shaped a popular narrative that portrays Italian food culture as the gateway to an idealized lifestyle centered on values such as authenticity, tradition, and regionality. To this end, the article intertwines Italy’s food history with the analysis of some of the socio-cultural and economic developments that have affected Italian and American mediascapes from the 1970s to the present. These include both the “fast-foodization” of Italian and Italian American foodways, as well as the Americanization of Italy’s mediascapes. At the same time, the growing presence of Italy-centered food content across American media has provided platforms, contexts, and instruments allowing for a greater transfer of Italian cultural items and ways to the U.S. What ultimately emerges is not only the transatlantic development of a gastronomic Italian identity, but also the need to rethink notions of Americanization and Italianization as mutually involving processes of cross-cultural contamination.