Love Difference cooking: comparing cultural identities in the kitchen. Recipes from cafeteria in Cittadellarte, by Francesco
The properties of garlic are well-known. Garlic-chilli spaghetti are known, too: you just have to cook spaghetti, and then stir them with chilly and garlic browned in olive oil.
Less known is that garlic is at the starting point of a racist prejudice:
Romans had a garlic tooth, peasants and soldiers loved this tasty bulb so much, that a roman writer wrote “our fathers used to give to their words the smell of garlic and onion. However, their minds were good-natured”. In short, despite their breath (or thanks to it), the best virtues were supported.
After the advent of the empire and of the Greek and oriental cooking (that means elegance at the table), garlic and smelly breath disappeared, leaving space to aromatic, refined herbs.
Still, Jewish people (a big number in ancient Rome) kept in loving and eating garlic: their breath was known as fetor iudaicus, that is “Jewish stinking breath”.
An ordinary ingredient was at the origin of a bad discrimination…

Love Difference ai fornelli: identità culturali a confronto (in cucina). Ricette dalla cafeteria di Cittadellarte - a cura di Francesco >>>