Food is a fundamental element of a country's identity card. It represents its culture, traditions, inventiveness and relationship with the land. It is not only the element of subsistence of a population, it is also a moment of relationships and social representations. At the table, agreements are made, festivities are celebrated, rituals are performed. Food is a moment of encounter and exchange. Not surprisingly, one avoids eating with those one is in conflict with. So, food as identity and encounter. As recognition and appreciation of one's roots and, at the same time, a metaphor for dialogue between different cultures.
In this sense, too, EXPO Milano 2015 is an extraordinary allegory of the possibilities of crossing very different and distant cultures, realities and territories. After all, knowledge of other traditions through food is an integral experience of our history. Thanks to conquerors, explorers and the development of trade, food (even more so than dishes) has gradually spread and contaminated different continents.
But it was from the last century, with the intensification of migration flows, that the exchange of culinary traditions spread almost planet-wide. Then it was commercial development and the processes of globalisation that gave a further acceleration. Not to mention the large number of television programmes devoted to cooking, the reverberations of which can also be seen in the growing number of young people enrolling in hotel management schools attracted by the possibility of becoming famous chefs. So, by now, in our cities, even the smallest ones, there is no shortage of opportunities to eat food from other continents: from sushi to kebabs, from spring rolls to churrasco. And it is enough to frequent ethnic restaurants to understand the curiosity of experiencing dishes from other territories. In short, food is perhaps one of the most glocal (global and local together) dimensions we can experience; it is a crossroads of our identities.
But in everyday life, on the tables at home, how do Italians behave? Community Media Research surveyed the behaviour of fellow countrymen when they go shopping. A twofold behaviour emerges. On the one hand, surveying culinary preferences reveals a wide range of preferences. Mediterranean cuisine (22.2%) shares first place with South American and Caribbean cuisine (20.1%). These are followed, more distantly, by Asian (13.2%) and African (12.2%). But there are also Indo-Thai (9.9%), Arab-Middle Eastern (6.0%) and Northern European-Scandinavian (6.0%) and several others.
So, in this respect, Italians show a curiosity and a desire to experience different culinary traditions. If this (as)sampling of other food cultures is quite widespread, on the other hand, it seems to be preferred outside one's own home. In fact, when one goes shopping for one's own table, a - if one may say so - 'patriotic' attitude clearly prevails. People very often choose foodstuffs that are typical of an Italian territory or region (55.7%), those at Km 0 (33.6%) and with a quality mark (DOP, IGP,...: 30.5%). Whether a food is organic (18.9%) or only vegetable (3.1%) is still of relative interest. Thus, food from other contexts occupies very little space on our table (4.2%).
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the economic dimension also plays a significant role in two respects. There is the fair trade dimension, i.e. the attention that products are respectful of the economic treatment of producers and workers, emphasised by 28.9% of respondents. This is a dimension that highlights - at least from the point of view of sensitivity - consumers' attention to ethical issues also in food. Then there is that of attention to cost containment, i.e. the cheapness of a product (25.0%). Finally, on this last aspect, an attempt was made to find out what the Italians' propensity was with regard to food acquisitions and whether they preferred the cost of a product or its quality. The answers tended to divide, highlighting three consumer profiles. The prevailing group is the 'savers' (40.3%), i.e. those who are mainly price-conscious when making a purchase. Economic conditions and experience mark more than others the orientations of this group characterised above all by the female component, the younger generations and those living in the Centre-South. This is followed by the 'balancers' (31.7%): these are those who look for a good balance in the quality/price ratio and are particularly found among the male component, those in their 50s, housewives and those with a high educational qualification. Lastly, we have the 'qualitative' (28.0%) who, in their purchases, place particular emphasis on the quality dimension of food products. In this group we find more people in their forties, entrepreneurs and executives, those living in the North and those with a high educational qualification. Italians and food, therefore, show different and mutually complementary facets. Attentive to saving money, but also seeking the right balance between quality and price. Curious and open to experiencing other culinary cultures and identity on the home table. Food is, to all intents and purposes, an emblem of the contemporary experience: the glocal.
Daniele Marini
Methodological note
Community Media Research, in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo for La Stampa, is conducting the LaST (Laboratory on Society and Territory) survey, which was carried out nationwide from 20 February to 27 March 2015 on a representative sample of the population resident in Italy, aged over 18. The methodological aspects and the survey were handled by the specialist company Questlab. The total number of respondents was 1,493 and, in order to better correspond to the universe of the population, the data analysis was reproportioned on the basis of gender, territory, age classes, professional status and educational qualification. The margin of error is +/-2.6%. Survey participants were invited to answer a questionnaire via the web through the main social networks and through the activation of a random sample of names that could be reached by e-mail (CAWI) and by telephone (CATI). Daniele Marini designed and directed the research. The results are available at www.indaginelast.it.
