Issue Vol. 5 — What Remains as Things Change: Reflections on aSummer in Italy
Gastronomy is Not About Haute Cuisine
Is the Strength of ‘Made in Italy’ Simply a Matter of Good Branding?
Before coming to study in Italy, I often came across articles in Japan arguing that Italian
businesses had succeeded in reaching global markets directly from small towns and in
building ‘Made in Italy’ into a powerful brand—and that Japan, supposedly less adept at
branding, should learn from them. Yet after living here and working for an Italian
manufacturer, I realised that it was not as simple as saying, ‘Italians are good at branding.’
1. Not the Power to Make the Local Global, but to Make the Local Incredibly Rich
While Keeping It Local
What surprised me was the almost excessive extent to which people continue to
explore highly local and distinctive things, without trying to broaden or dilute them.
This summer, while based in Mantua for my internship, I enjoyed taking day trips to different
towns across northern Italy. Even among filled pastas, there were countless tiny variations: a
slight difference in the amount of filling, the way the pasta was folded, or the addition of a
single ingredient. Each town gives its version a different name, and its residents are
genuinely convinced that theirs is better than one in the next town.
And this goes beyond simply ‘taking pride’ in their local culture. At times, it is almost
playfully provocative. Whenever I posted food on my Instagram Stories, an Italian friend
would cheerfully message me: ‘Oh, that looks great—but ours is better!’
What struck me most was that this intensity and sense of personal ownership did not
belong only to chefs, food experts or devoted gastronomes. It was present among
ordinary people, too.
I think the key lies precisely in this refusal to make things easily understandable. The
differences are so small that, unless you are interested or genuinely care, you might never
notice them. You could simply laugh and say, ‘They’re basically the same!’
Yet affection sharpens the way we see things, enabling us to spot differences that
might otherwise remain invisible. Those tiny distinctions gradually become units of
culture. What may initially strike outsiders as excessively particular—or even a little
eccentric—eventually becomes something unmistakable: a brand unlike any other.
Perhaps branding does not begin by asking, ‘What is attractive about your company or
region?’ Instead, it might begin with a different question:
‘What would make you angry if someone treated you as interchangeable with your
competitor—or the neighbouring town?’
What follows the response, ‘No, no, they’re completely different—because…’ is probably
what truly matters. The difference is not manufactured afterwards simply to distinguish
oneself in the eyes of outsiders. What exists first is a deeply held sense of what cannot
be compromised.
2. More Than Difference Itself: The Systems That Reproduce It
Italians do not allow this sense of what cannot be compromised to remain purely personal
attachment. They are deeply serious about building systems that enable it to survive
within society.
Globally recognised products such as Parmigiano Reggiano are governed by the detailed
rules of the DOP system. That much I already knew. What I discovered during this stay,
however, was that similar frameworks extend even to the customs and foods of much
smaller municipalities.
These include De.Co., through which a municipality recognises products and traditions
deeply connected to its local area, and PAT (Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale),
which identifies foods and production methods passed down within a region. The cotechino
eaten on Ferragosto in the small town of Grazie, which I wrote about in my previous article,
was itself recognised as a De.Co. tradition.
These systems are not reserved for products intended to be sold around the world. Even if
no tourists ever come, and even if people elsewhere never understand the distinction,
Italians give a name and a boundary to things they want to preserve simply because ‘this is
ours’. They turn that sense of belonging into a system capable of carrying it forward.
At an Italian greengrocer, for example, you might see potatoes described as nostrano.
Dictionaries translate the word as local or domestic, but it does not feel quite the same as
the Japanese term kokusan, meaning ‘domestically produced”. Because nostrano contains
nostro—‘ours’—it conveys a much more intimate sense of proximity: ‘from this place’ or
‘belonging to us’. At first, I almost wanted to laugh and ask, ‘Ours—but whose ‘ours’
exactly?’ Yet in Italy, within the broad category of ‘Italian food’, there are countless smaller,
overlapping versions of ‘our taste’ , each belonging to a particular town or region.
Japan, of course, also has rich regional differences, and they add greatly to the experience
of travelling through the country. But perhaps the mere existence of difference is not
enough.
More important than residents being able to explain those differences as mere facts
may be their sense of personal ownership over them
More important than residents being able to explain those differences as mere knowledge
facts may be their sense of personal ownership over them—the feeling that they
themselves are part of what makes those differences matter.
3. Not Storytelling, but Storydoing
When I observe Italians, I sense a consistent set of values and attitudes running through the
way they live. Throughout my time studying abroad, I feel this is what I have learnt most from
them. And perhaps it is less a matter of storytelling than of storydoing. Rather than
preparing an explanation that says, ‘This is our story’, Italians continue to live according to
those values today. They eat the same local dish on the same day each year. They compete
with the neighbouring town over whose version tastes better. They casually sit on ruins that
have stood for two thousand years. They are not so much telling a story as continuing to
live as its characters.
Visitors, therefore, do not simply listen to the story. They enter a place where it is still
unfolding in the present day. You can buy Parmigiano Reggiano in supermarkets around
the world. You can eat Michelin-starred Italian food in Tokyo. Open Instagram, and you will
find an endless stream of reels showing Italian landscapes and dishes. Yet none of this
removes the reason to come to Mantua itself. That is because a product can be exported,
but the entire web of relationships that gives it meaning cannot. I believe there are still
many forms of value that can only be understood by coming to this town, walking through it
and placing yourself within its context.
4. Preserving Something Does Not Mean Keeping It Unchanged
When I visited Cremona and encountered torrone—the city’s signature nougat, made with
nuts, honey and egg whites—I noticed something else. The strength required to preserve
a tradition does not depend solely on keeping a single finished form intact. While
protecting the essential core of torrone—the part that must not be changed—people have
allowed countless possibilities to branch out from it: different flavours and sizes, new
products, new ways of eating it and new occasions on which to enjoy it. They have also
connected it with other aspects of the city’s culture. In doing so, they create more entry
points into the tradition, increasing the number of people who encounter it, participate in it
and interpret it in their own way. Rather than broadening the tradition by diluting it, they
keep its core specific and concentrated while extending its relationships outwards.
Perhaps Made in Italy is not one enormous ‘Italy’ brand at all, but rather a condition in
which countless small versions of ‘ours’ have been allowed to survive.
Differences so slight that an outsider might ask, ‘Do you really need to care that much?’ are
not dismissed with a laugh as being ‘basically the same’. It is precisely this refusal to
compromise—so intense that it can seem eccentric—that ultimately makes these places and
products seem unmistakable to outsiders. Perhaps that is where the true strength of
Made in Italy lies.
Even a Single Cheese Is Made from a Web of Relationships
What I had sensed while walking through these towns began to reveal itself in a different
form during my internship at Consorzio Latterie Virgilio.
The Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano handled by Virgilio were not originally created
with the ambition of producing high-value goods for global markets. In the Po Valley, where
dairy farming has long flourished, people needed a way to preserve daily milk production
rather than let it go to waste. Out of this practical necessity, they developed techniques to
transform milk into cheese and age it long-term. The relationship between this land and its
cheese, therefore, is not a ‘story’ added to the product afterwards. If we trace the
question—‘Why is this made here?’—far enough back, we arrive at the real needs and
reasons of the people who have lived on this land.
The Division of Labour and Shared Language Behind Cheesemaking
Nor is that value created by one person.
Before a single cheese reaches the consumer, it passes through far more hands than I
had imagined: the dairy farmers who raise the cows and milk them; the cheesemakers who
transform that milk into cheese; Virgilio, which handles ageing, processing and sales; and
those responsible for certification, logistics, import and distribution. Rather than being
completed by one charismatic artisan, the cheese moves from one person to the next, with
each taking responsibility for a different part of the process. A single cheese is, in effect, a
collective work created by many people connected to the same place. This was what
made the DOP system particularly interesting to me. Even when people working far apart
are involved, they share a set of non-negotiable standards concerning the production area,
ingredients, methods and ageing process. These allow the cheese to pass from one person
to another without losing its value—and with each participant able to trust the work that
came before. Before my internship, I had thought of DOP simply as a certification designed
to protect traditional foods. But once I became part of this division of labour, I began to see it
differently. DOP also functions as a shared language that enables people separated by
distance and responsibility to work together.
Food Is a Web of Relationships
Throughout that month, I spent my days off visiting the surrounding towns, eating as much
local food as I could and walking through their streets. At first, my curiosity went no further
than asking, ‘Why do people eat this particular dish in this particular town?’ But the more
closely I followed that question, the less it remained a story about food alone. I may have
started with food, but before I knew it, I was researching agriculture, studying the landscape,
reading history and encountering architecture, art and music. I even found myself
investigating royal courts and historic trade routes. Somehow, without quite noticing, I had
turned into a cultural scholar—which made me laugh. Over the course of that month, I felt
that I had come to understand something of what northern Italy is—not just conceptually, but
through lived experience.
Perhaps this is because the food of northern Italy does not exist in isolation, but as a
web of relationships.
Even within a single meal, the richness of animal fats—through butter, cheese and meat—is
layered with the fragrance, sweetness and bitterness of sage, nutmeg and amaretti, before
an acidic wine brings everything together. Rather than allowing a single ingredient to
stand alone, the cuisine seems to create flavour by building relationships between
different elements.
After spending a month following these connections, I had a sudden moment of clarity:
‘Ah—perhaps this is why I am studying food here in northern Italy.’ Here, trying to
understand a single food inevitably takes you across disciplinary boundaries. No single field
can fully explain what is in front of you. I had understood that food studies was
interdisciplinary, but perhaps, in this place, food itself had already been crossing
disciplines from the very beginning.
Over the course of that month, as I kept thinking about what it means to preserve food, the
question gradually became about much more than food alone.
Traditions, products and human relationships do not continue unchanged simply
because they were once given a form. For them to keep existing, someone must
choose to engage with them anew, again and again.
「Kaeru」and「Kawaru」
One conversation with an Italian acquaintance stayed with me this summer.
In Japanese, we distinguish between kaeru—to change something—and kawaru—for
something to change. In Italian, however, both can be expressed with the verb cambiare.
My acquaintance suggested that Japanese people might have a particular tendency to feel
that they must sistemare the future. Sistemare means something like ‘to put in order’, ‘to
arrange’ or ‘to bring into a proper state’. Thinking back, I realised that I may have long
carried a certain compulsion: the belief that to improve the future, I had to actively change
the present. I also felt that, for the sake of the future, it would be safer to arrange things into
the ‘right form’ while I still could.
Yet this summer, I repeatedly found myself thinking that just because something took
a certain form in the past, that doesn’t mean it exists the same way today.
The fact that something happened in the past has value in itself. But being spoken about by
people today—and continuing to hold meaning for them—is something different. Having
once formed a connection with someone is not the same as maintaining a relationship with
that person in the present. I think the same is true of professional relationships and
traditions.
Defining a form or assigning a role once does not guarantee that things will continue
automatically from that point onwards. Something being true yesterday does not mean it will
remain exactly the same today. It is allowed to change in response to its circumstances.
That inevitably creates ambiguity—and it is precisely why communication and care
are needed, each time anew.
Until now, perhaps some part of me had believed that once a form had been established, it
could be preserved as it was—and that this permanence would offer a sense of security. But
what I encountered this summer was a different understanding: relationships are
continually renewed through the actions of those living within them at each particular
moment.
We do not have to force the present into the ‘right shape’ for the sake of the future.
Rather than thinking only about how to ‘change’ things, perhaps I can allow myself, the
things around me and my relationships with others to change with each passing moment.
Perhaps I can face that uncertainty in a more natural and unforced way.
That is what I hope to carry forward from this summer in Italy.
Follow our journey @movimento.metropolitano.
