PUNTOITALY N°1 -January - June 2012

58 GastroMarketing Italian cuisine is, without the shadow of a doubt, one of the best known and most appreciated in the world, and the restaurants serving it are unquestionably the most wide- spread, to be found all round the globe. One should not however forget that every national cuisine contains within itself the possibility of variation as it is trans- ported into other countries. However, transportation often, unfortunately, becomes transformation. The fact is that often, more or less intentionally, Italian cuisine is not simply replicated in another part of the world, but also totally transformed and reinterpreted. In extreme cases, the dishes completely lose their connection with the land from which they originated, assuming local inflections that lead to “hybrid” results that are almost comic. An Italian eating at an Italian restaurant abroad often totally fails to recognise the dishes advertised as “Italian style” to be anything like the real article. Just think how pizza is reinter- preted in France, with the use of shaved emmental instead of mozzarella, or how any sauce that is dreamed up is called “Bolognese”, although this is an original and very specific meat-based sauce. The fact that Italian cuisine is renowned and appreciated throughout the world confirms that it is right to promote Ital- ian-style cuisine, provided people know how to interpret Ital- ian dishes properly. • Italian cuisine is a source of inspiration around the world - not always in the correct manner. PUT ITALY ON YOUR MENU A jungle of symbols Italy is often interpreted through its rich array of symbols, and one comes across an infinite number of variations. The tricoloured flag is extremely popular, so that signs with re- versed, faded or inverted tricolours abound, even though this can make Italy’s flag resemble those of many other countries, such as Mexico or Hungary. On the other hand, the boot-shape of Italy featured, for example, on street signs in San Francesco to represent the district of Little Italy, has an unmistakeable shape. The best-known monu- ments are also exploited, but if the Colosseum in Rome is presumably the most famous symbol of ancient history in Italy, throughout the whole of the Far East it is the Tower of Pisa that figures on most of the signs, no doubt because of its odd angle. Venetian gondolas, the name of the city of Flo- rence used as a trade mark, photos of Totò and Sophia Loren - these are some of the other most common symbols by which Italy is represented. There are enough examples to suit everyone! Davide Pini manages innovative marketing projects in the food away from home market. He’s the founder of www.gastromarketing.it