Italian cuisine may be one of the most recognised and loved in the world – often imagined as a collection of ancient recipes and local traditions preserved by skilful nonnas over the centuries. But now, a food historian is exposing common myths and false stories, arguing that the Italian cuisine as we know it is barely a few decades old.

Food is no doubt an integral part of the country's culture and identity – so much so that Italians cherish Neapolitan pizza or pasta alla carbonara as much as the great historical and artistic treasures of the boot-shaped peninsula. Tales abound of centuries-old local feuds over what city has the best filled pasta, while every local cheese or cured meat is likely to boast links to the Renaissance or the Middle Ages.

Alberto Grandi, food historian and professor of economic history at the University of Parma, has been debunking Italian food myths for years. In 2018, Grandi published Denominazione di Origine Inventata (Invented Designation of Origin: The Lies of Marketing on Typical Italian Products) and later launched a podcast called DOI. But it was a 2023 interview with Financial Times that put Grandi's work into the spotlight and sparked wide debates across Italy.

Grandi claimed in the interview that pasta alla carbonara was invented in Italy just after World War Two using US Army provisions like bacon and powdered egg yolks, countering the common belief that the authentic recipe includes pork jowl and Roman pecorino cheese. This theory is backed by other authors, like Luca Cesari in The Discovery of Pasta: A History in Ten Dishes, but caused outrage in a country increasingly obsessed with maintaining the lore of Italian authenticity in food. The discussion evolved into a heated Italian-American dispute about the origin of the iconic dish.

Grandi's latest book, La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste (Italian Cuisine Doesn't Exist), written with his podcast co-host Daniele Soffiati and published in April 2024, stirred new controversies with its provocative title.

The idea that many beloved recipes and products such as cheeses or cured meats have hundreds of years of history, Grandi and Soffiati claim, is pure fantasy. Food is constantly changing and evolving. No product or recipe has always been as we know it now, and most dishes have a shorter history than most people imagine.

Grandi argues that migration is what made Italian cuisine what it is today. Millions of people left Italy in the 19th and 20th Centuries, emigrating to South America, North America and European countries. They were leaving behind a country that was poverty-stricken, where the diet was limited to a handful of products. Pellagra, a disease caused by lack of vitamin B3, was endemic in several areas of Italy at the end of the 19th Century.

The Italians who landed on New York's Ellis Island left hunger and misery behind. And it was in the "new world", Grandi argues, that Italian immigrants found the wealth and ingredients to create the recipes that........

© BBC