National dishes are so intertwined with the identities of their countries of origin that they are an impetus for patriotism, says Howard Chua-Eoan for Bloomberg Opinion.
Some governments have won UNESCO recognition for the uniqueness not only of specific dishes but of whole swaths of kitchen culture: Neapolitan pizza,It’s become a veritable certificate of ownership over the interpretations and appropriation of dishes.invaded Ukraine in 2022, UNESCO issued an emergency recognition of borscht as Ukrainian. Kyiv’s first successful counteroffensive was cultural. Moscow was apoplectic.
At heart, designated national dishes are as much propaganda as palate-pleasers. Many aren’t even intrinsic to the modern polities that claim them: Pizza was the despised scrap of burnt dough eaten only by poor Neapolitans; ramen began with Chinese migrants in the port of Yokohama; tapas truly emerged only in the 1920s. But they’ve become tools in nation building: The alimentary comforts of home can be exploited to define a homeland.
Italy, still freshly united at the end of the 1900s and lacking national cohesion, eagerly absorbed this reimagination of its cuisine by formerly poor huddled masses yearning to be fed.
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