The mythical recipes of the 80s: when food became food

«For the first time in the Italian cuisine of the 1980s, industrial food was equated with peasant food, created by Mother Nature and the merciful God of Catholic Italy. Accustomed to the idea that homemade food was the pride of Italian culture, in that decade the first pact between industry and home cooking was born: if now the various talent foods and Masterchefs dominate on TV, it is also thanks to those years “.

It certainly cannot be said that Carlo Spinelli, alias «Doctor Gourmeta“(” But above all someone who travels, eats and writes in no particular order “he says), is afraid to assign to the most discussed – and for many deleterious – decade of recent history the fundamental role in gastronomic and culinary evolution up to the present day .

He did this in an interesting book: Ottantafame, Sentimental cookbook of the immortals of the 80s (Marsilio Carta Bianca) which has a merit from the start. Although pleasant to read it is scientific, an essay rather than a story: the Milanese journalist and author in 1985 began elementary school. No rogue nostalgia, no self-referentiality, no reducism.

Spinelli, you have reviewed with the eye of the forty-year-old what you remembered as a child. How and why he decided that the 1980s represented the watershed, especially in food.
«By studying a lot and talking with the protagonists of the time, I realized that in a social situation very different from the terrible one of the 70s, a sea of ​​things have changed. There was just a change of cultures that for me as a child was represented by a very practical dichotomy: the gnocchi homemade by my grandmother for lunch, the sofficini for dinner because my mother worked in a bank and had no time to cook. I loved both of them, but now I understand that a new world has begun there ».

Where the industrialization of food becomes the rule. Today there is an obsession with the handmade product and sometimes the giants that fill the shelves are accused. Don’t you find him curious?
«In the 1980s, however, it was progress: food in transparent trays or frozen bags is practical, it wastes nothing, it allows you to cook quickly. The Girella and the Calippo take the place of the slice of tart and the popsicle. It is the progress of a country that, especially in the province, is still linked to the seasons and markets. In addition, the phenomenon is supported in an impressive way by the advertising of the new commercial TVs, with brilliant commercials that in more than one case have sexual references: the girl from Morositas, the sadomasochistic witch of Saila Menta, the countess and Ambrose del Ferrero Rocher. Unthinkable in the days of Carosello, which happened to close in ’77. And I like to remember that the imaginary Cacao Meravigliaio of the Arbore program, sung by the half-naked dancers, ends up being searched for in supermarkets “

He wrote that the fast food of the 1980s is perhaps the most democratic place in history. Today it is difficult to find someone who writes well, beyond that they remain popular.
“Exact. Now it is synonymous with poor nutrition, relegated to shopping malls or suburbs. Enjoyment at civilian prices, regardless of calories and sugars. But when Burghy – which by the way was an Italian brand – makes its debut fast food appeals to all groups and upsets our habits: colorful places, food & drink proposal never seen before, speed in service, possibility of eating in an arc impossible time until the 80s. Coming from America, it could only be an international city like Milan that welcomed and understood the news. Hence the spread in Italy ».

Milan, the one to drink, already avant-garde: the Ramazzotti commercial dates back to 1985.
«As always, the trends start here. That of Italian bitters and the first cocktails for example. But also of ethnic cuisine, with the first places that timidly enter the circuit of enthusiasts: I am thinking of the Indian Shri Ganesh was born in ’91 or of the Chinese with kilometer-long menus. Behind the increased attention of the public, there is the boom in travel abroad: in the holiday villages, Italians are desperately looking for spaghetti al dente but they begin to taste foreign foods. Also in Milan, the first vegetarian community that talks about organic, food ethics develops: even here it is not surprising that Pietro Leemann’s Joia opens in 1989 “

At the same time, we begin to think about new Italian cuisine.
«It’s an incredible decade: in 1986 Gambero Rosso and Slow Food were born, which with different visions gave a crazy impulse to restaurants and producers. Then, with the methanol scandal, for Italian wine after a terrible crisis, an era finally begins where there are no compromises: fashionable but healthy wines – I am thinking of Tavernello – or the great Tuscan or Piedmontese labels, often more loved all over the world. abroad than at home. And still these are the years in which the European Community decides to create the various DOC, DOP and IGP, to protect the specialties of each country. The general level rises “

What role do you assign to Gualtiero Marchesi: first Michelin Star in ’78 and three-starred in 86. Son of that era or is there also chance in his rise?
«Having said that the phenomena are difficult to classify, he was the front-man of what seems to me a culinary sovereignty, in contrast to the French school that had conditioned our cuisine. Until that moment, apart from very few excitements, we either went to a trattoria or ate ‘French style’ in classic restaurants. In the 1980s, some of our chefs decided that we could copy the technique but tell our story and our products. So here is the Trigabolo that opens in 1982, the best period of Paracucchi, the growth at high levels of Aimo and Nadia. Marchesi remains unique, because he went further: returning from France he decided to review our regional traditions, with a cultural provocation. Open Raviolo is nothing more than the ingenious choice of revealing how much every Italian filled pasta has always hidden, with an artist’s touch. We add that he was the teacher of many of the best current chefs and here the role is absolute ».

Ultimately, did people eat worse or better in the 1980s than today?
“I’d separate haute cuisine from everything else. It seems to me that after the Spanish wave of the 90s and the Nordic wave of 2000, the Italian one has found its way which, apart from the exaltation of the chef – unknown in the 80s – is largely based on the teaching of that era and on our products. Regarding the tastes of the mass, I find that there is a growing band that is truly attentive to quality and that has learned to use e-commerce where it cannot get what it is looking for. It strikes me that in a digital age we often go in search of the Ancient, in the techniques of preparation or conservation but also in raw materials such as flour. Exactly the opposite of the ’80s where they strongly wanted to get out of old concepts and habits “

Curiosity: it has been a decade as we have seen. with many positive notes, but we remember the rice with strawberries, the shrimp cocktail, the penne with vodka. Why?
“Good question. Perhaps because there were very few at that time who had a true culinary culture and therefore ignore the best that has passed. Today, especially thanks to the TV, maybe you will never go to Cracco’s restaurant but you know that he is a great cook and that he also makes gourmet pizza. Actually, I don’t have a real answer: I was a kid at the time who had Wendy’s in the street where I lived. And it seemed like a fairytale place ».