Italian and British food cultures, as all national cultures, are constructed through processes of inclusion/exclusion of pre-existing elements (Hall, 1992; Johnson, 1993; Edensor, 2002). On the one hand, the Italian food culture was constructed in the nineteenth century, starting from Pellegrino Artusi's cookbook La Scienza in Cucina (Science in the kitchen), whose first edition was self-published and not a best seller. After the unification, Italian politicians realised that after Italy, it was necessary to unify Italians. The book was re-printed by a big publisher with forewords by politicians' wives and popular poets and Italy found its national food culture (Capatti and Montanari, 2003: 27), regional and ignorant of foods from other countries. Moreover, Artusi had not wanted to write a 'national' cookbook, so he had excluded many regions where he had never been (in the following editions, published after Artusi's death, the missing Italian regions were added).
On the other hand, British food culture was constructed when Britain was a powerful nation, during the Industrial Revolution. Many people from other countries went to Britain, while British people moved to big cities losing contacts with their traditional food. Immigrants brought to Britain their food and British food culture was shaped by multiculturalism (Mason, 2004).
A comparative, semiotic analysis of the travelling food shows Ti Ci Porto Io (Italy) and Jamie's Great Britain (Britain) shows that the constructed cultures are still dominant and represented. The chef Gianfranco Vissani neglects the same Italian regions neglected by Artusi, and Jamie Oliver pays homage to the immigrants that shaped the current British food culture, creating an animated logo in which many foreign flags become the British flag. Moreover, when a national culture is built, the nation shapes not only itself, but also its relationships with the others. Italian food culture, constructed without any contact with other countries, may create problems in this sense, especially when extolling 'our food' means also despising others' food. In two identical scenes of the shows, each of the two chefs goes to a Chinese restaurant, in Italy and Britain. Oliver learns to cook Chinese food from a Chinese chef, and in the end serves at table. The Italian chef Vissani, instead, goes to the restaurant with a comedian. They do not learn anything, mock the Chinese chef because he does not understand Italian and, being unable to eat with chopsticks, go away.
It may be just a TV show, detached from reality. But television, politics and culture are continually in a state of flux and always affect each other. In 2011, a famous Italian politician, Luca Zaia, was caught eating at a Chinese restaurant and had to apologise for it. He is an advocate of Italian traditional food and Italian restaurateurs and entrepreneurs considered his Chinese dinner as a threat to the continually celebrated Italian tradition. (
http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2011/01/06/news/
se_anche_il_padano_zaia_va_al_ristorante_cinese-10895983/). Finally, ethnic restaurants have been banned by some Italian historical city centres (
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/
2009/nov/16/italy-foreign-food-shops-immigrant?INTCMP=SRCH). However, media, politicians and hegemonic subjects continually re-negotiate national cultures. In the last ten years, ethnic restaurants in Italy have multiplied and also television, in the future, will have to acknowledge it, taking a more balanced position on the long fight between tradition (food nationalism) and transformation (ethnic restaurants).