The Food Programme - Food and the Unification of Italy

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Sheila Dillon explores a food story behind the 150th anniversary of Italian unification. In 1861 Italians came together as one nation, but does food reveal a different story?

Sheila travels to Sicily where she hears how the island's powerful food culture is seen as evidence by some of disappointment with the creation of a nation state. She meets food historian Mary Taylor Simeti who explains how menus in the 19th century show how Sicilians rejected the temptations of food from the mainland and further afield.

Producer: Dan Saladino.

Published on Tuesday, 5th April 2011.

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