Presented by Anthony F. Buccini, PhD

One aspect of the issue of culinary authenticity involves the borrowing and integration of new foodstuffs. In this paper we address this aspect of authenticity in connexion with the family of western Mediterranean vegetable stews, namely, pisto, samfaina, cianfotta and ratatouille, a family of dishes which to some are emblematic for the cuisines of the region but which all feature multiple exotic ingredients (eggplant, peppers, tomato, courgette, potato).  Our discussion begins with an analysis of the development of these dishes in time and across both geographical and social space. The linguistic evidence provides crucial clues which point to the original versions of these dishes likely being developed earlier than generally thought and specifically among the lower classes. What long remained exotic to the literate classes had much sooner been exploited and naturally integrated into the diets of the region’s poor, ultimately to become embraced as native delicacies by all.

Anthony F. Buccini received his undergraduate education at Columbia University in the City of New York (B.A.) and his graduate education at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. (Ph.D.); he also studied and later conducted research as a Fulbright Scholar at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. He has published and taught extensively in his primary fields of historical linguistics and sociolinguistics, especially in connection with the Germanic, Romance and Celtic languages. He is currently working on two monographs, one on the influence of Celtic on English in the early Middle Ages, the other on selected topics in the culinary history of the Western Mediterranean.

Dr. Buccini’s presentation will be based on his paper “Western Mediterranean Vegetable Stews and the Integration of Culinary Exotica,” which he also presented at this year’s Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. For this paper, Dr. Buccini was awarded the Sophie Coe Prize, which recognizes each year an outstanding contribution in the field of food history.