L’isola da mangiare. L’alterità siciliana vista dai ricettari per stranieri

Abstract

The work focuses on the relation between typical food and insularity, through a semiotics analysis of Sicilian cookbooks for anglophone readers. Initially, we briefy show examples of how cookbooks have contributed in the past, according to historians and anthropologists, which have shaped territorial identities and promotes regional and local identities. Following this there is a recap on the semiotics approach towards cookbooks and on the several elements involved in this kind of text analysis such as spatial, historical, political and translational factors. Secondly, we analyze a group of Sicilian cookbooks, published for the international market, highlighting their cartographical construction of terroir and history of the Sicilian isle. Through the authors point of view, the publications build a map of internal geographical differences and external past infuences on Sicilian food heritage, constructing the so-called “continental island”. The Sicilian island, as a continent, tends to be shown by foreign cookbooks as an ensemble of well-kept and unchangeable dishes and ingredients, matching western and eastern past civilizations, and paradoxically separate to any current and external influence.