Locating Italianicity Through Food and Tourism: Playing with Geographical Associations

Food is a highly performative expression of Italianicity, and is reproduced, transformed, reified and contested through flows of mobility and globalisation. This chapter aims to explore the scalar geographical associations—particularly the ‘local’ and the ‘national’—that connote Italianicity as it emerges in food performances in the context of tourism. The discussion begins by examining the construction, circulation and consumption of food of local origin in tourist food shops, followed by scrutiny of how retailers are open to scaling this geographical frame of reference to the national level in order to meet tourists’ demands for iconic products. This playful scalar entanglement also includes framing or achieving a compromise with foodways that may or may not be consistent with food manners branded as Italian. Italianicity emerges as a ‘mobile technology’, something that is not only multi-scalar but also one that is bounded and unbounded, fluid and fixing, territorialising and de-territorialising. As such, it should be taken into account when developing transectorial synergies between food and other key sectors of the ‘Made in Italy’ brand.