6 21 MARCH 2024 News&Views From pizza to pasta and olive oil to burrata, our appetite for Italian food shows no signs of waning. Sarah Barratt discovers how it became the nation’s favourite cuisine When he arrived in the UK from Italy in the 60s, Professor Diego Zancani asked for some olive oil to make a plate of dry peas more palatable. His host duly packed him o to the chemist, where he procured a tiny bottle of an oily substance. Olive oil, it turned out, was used exclusively as an antidote to ear infections. Fast forward to today and Italian food has well and truly conquered Blighty – Waitrose alone o ers at least 60 types of olive oil, not to mention delicacies such as ’nduja, burrata and Nocellara olives. Indeed, the most recent Waitrose Food & Drink Report found that Italian was “hands down our favourite international cuisine”, with a third of those surveyed revealing they ate it more than any other. “I’m seeing two sides to this trend,” says Waitrose Partner and innovation manager Lizzie Haywood. “People are eating more pasta and pizza because they’re simple, delicious and a ordable. Then there’s the foodie side – led by celebrity cooks like Stanley Tucci – focusing on regional ingredients such as porchetta and trofie.” Waitrose Partner and buyer Elinor Gri n reports a rise in pasta and pasta sauce sales in the past year, with pesto being a weekly staple for many. “But BUON APPETITO! In focus customers are becoming more adventurous, sampling new flavours such as black garlic and tru e – and cooking Italian classics like cacio e pepe,” she says. “The success of Italian food in Britain seems to be unstoppable,” says Diego, who, alongside teaching linguistics at Oxford University, seeks to educate about the origins of ‘Britalian’ cooking. In his book How We Fell in Love With Italian Food, he tracks the beginning of this cross-cultural love a air to the Romans, who arrived at English ports with boatloads of wine and olives. However, when their legions retreated, so too did these spoils of subjugation, and Britain became a ‘culinary wasteland’. At least, that’s how food writer Anna Del Conte put it when she arrived from Milan some two millennia later, in 1949. The now 99-year-old is credited with transforming Britain’s understanding of Italian food with her revolutionary cookbooks, including Portrait of Pasta and Gastronomy of Italy. “All Anna’s dishes are fabulous for home cooking,” says Paola Maggiulli, a cookery teacher and Italian food expert. “Her style lends itself to what the British need – it’s simple, flavourful and quick, ideal for the busy British lifestyle. The nation has fallen in love with pasta – it’s so versatile and easy.” But Italian foods such as macaroni and ice cream arrived long before Anna Del Conte – thanks to a boom in tourism to Italy and an influx of Italians to the UK in the 1800s. More migrants followed after the Second World War, with most working as waiters, although others set up delis, such as Lina Stores in 1944, and eateries including Bar Italia in 1949 – both of which are in Soho and still exist today. Despite this rise in restaurants, our knowledge of Italian cuisine remained limited. This was evident on 1 April 1957, when the BBC broadcast a spoof documentary about the spaghetti harvest, showing people plucking strands of pasta from a tree. “Many viewers fell for this April Fool,” laughs Diego. By the 60s, he notes that ‘enjoying a meal with other people’ had begun to take o in the UK, ramping up in 1965 with the arrival of Pizza Express in Soho. Within a few years, more than 300 opened across the UK. But the passage of pizza to our plates was far from simple. This southern Italian dish was first introduced to the US by Italian immigrants in the early 1900s, quickly becoming popular due to its convenience and low cost. The first Pizza Hut opened in Kansas in 1958, going global from the 60s. “Italians may have brought pizza to the States, but America introduced it to the world,” says Diego. The River Café opened in Hammersmith in 1987, and gave Londoners a taste for wild mushroom risotto and almond cake. Founders Ruth Rogers and the late Rosie Gray are also credited with bringing the first cavolo nero seeds to Britain. More crucially, they gave us Jamie Oliver, who was a teenage sous chef at the restaurant when he was discovered by a BBC film crew in 1997. Jamie helped spread the word about Italian cooking in his ‘The Mediterranean diet is rich in seasonal fruits, vegetables, wholegrains and pulses and its health benefits add to its appeal’ ITALIAN LOVE AFFAIR Minestrone soup (main); actor and cook Stanley Tucci (right)
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