While speaking at a multi - course spread in Milan on November 15 , 1930 , Filippo Tommaso Marinettipresentedhis dude Italians with an incendiary call to action . Pasta , hesaid , was a “ passéist food ” that “ [ deluded people ] into thinking it [ was ] nutritive ” and made them “ heavy , brutal , ” “ doubting , slow , [ and ] pessimistic . ” As such , it should be abolished and replaced with rice .
So set out a captivating moment infood history : an outrageous crusade against the country ’s most beloved carbohydrate . Not only did Marinetti ’s movement elicit passionate reactions on both sides , but it also had some less - than - tenuous ties toBenito Mussolini’sfascist regimen .
Mr. Rice Guy
Marinetti ’s initial financial statement distribute so wide because he himself tower large over lodge at the meter . His 1909 “ Manifesto of Futurism”launchedthe Futurist movement , which championed a shift aside from the dull , demode processes of the past tense and toward the sleek technologies of the time to come . Though in the beginning specific to artwork , Futurismwas a nationalistic cause at nub — a way for the newly merge country to take in up to other world power — and it align with Mussolini ’s fledgling political campaign . In fact , the two mencollaboratedclosely while establishing their various political parties ( Marinetti’sFasci Politici Futuristiand Mussolini’sFasci di Combattimento ) asWorld War Icame to a last . Marinetti had distanced himself from Mussolini by the early 1920s , but he still invoke Il Duce ’s policies when they function his goals .
For thepastaprohibition , they did . To make Italy less reliant on importedwheat , Mussolini ’s governance had start promote rice — which was much sluttish to produce domestically — over pasta . In the late 1920s , heestablishedthe “ National Rice Board ” and evendeclaredNovember 1 to be “ National Rice Day . ” As Philip McCouatwritesfor theJournal of Art History , the dictator never went so far as to banish macaroni , but citizen were already intimate with anti - pasta view by the time Marinetti began his smirch campaign .
On December 28 , 1930 , the Futurist follow up his dinner speech with the “ Manifesto of Futurist Cooking , ” co - written with the artist Luigi Colombo ( knownas “ Fillìa ” ) andpublishedin Turin’sGazzetta del popolo . In it , theydescribedpasta itself as an “ absurd Italian gastronomical faith ” and pasta devotee asbeing“shackled by its ball and chemical chain like convicted lifers or [ carry ] its ruins in their tum like archeologist . ”
In forgetful , they think that pasta matter Italians down and prevented them from achieve any kind of greatness . The ultimate solvent was for the government to replace all food with nutritional tablet , pulverisation , and other stilted substitute , but until the chemists could create such innovations , the Futurists would settle for swop out alimentary paste with rice . “ And think back too , ” theywrote , “ that the abolition of alimentary paste will relieve Italy from expensive foreign straw and promote the Italian Sir Tim Rice industriousness . ”
Starch Enemies and Allies
While Marinetti ’s initial actor’s line had incite a modest uprising among Italians , his written manifesto gave the issue a worldwide consultation . “ Fascist Writer , All Wound Up in Health Subject , Begs Countrymen to Swallow New Theory , ” theChicago Tribunesummarizedin an clause title “ Italy May Down Spaghetti , ” which hit newsstands just two days after Marinetti ’s manifesto .
Smaller crush covered the bombshell , too . “ No , signor . We beseech you , call off your holy state of war , ” Ernest L. Meyerpontificatedin Madison , Wisconsin’sThe Capital Times . “ Would you get rid of macaroni and all its melodiously christened cousins — macaroncelli , foratini , maglietti , ditalini , vermicelli — and keep down Italians to the unworthy dissonances of beans , bread , chop , chard , and manducate gingiva ? Fie , signor , there is no poesy in your someone , and your roof of the mouth lack wit . ”
masses living everywhere from France to Australia notice on the matter , but nowhere was the response more impassioned than in Italy . Women in the city of L’AquilasentMarinetti a objection letter , and the city manager of Naples went so far as to proclaim that “ the Angels in Paradise eat nothing but vermicelli with tomato sauce . ” ( Marinetti after come back that this was merely proof of “ the unappetizing monotony of Paradise and of the life of the Angels . ” ) But Futurism was n’t unpopular , and the alimentary paste ban had ardent advocates of its own . Italian author Marco Ramperti , for example , lambasted the dear repast in a extremely inventive op - ed .
“ [ alimentary paste ] puffs out our cheek like grotesque mask on a fountain , it choke up our gullets as if we were Christmas Turkey , it draw up our inside with its soft strings ; it pass with flying colors us to the chair , gorged and stupefied , apoplectic and puff , with [ a ] sensation of uselessness … ” hewrote . “ Our thoughts wind round each other , get miscellaneous up and tangled like the vermicelli we ’ve select in . ”
The Movement Loses Steam
Marinetti collected the best testimonies from scientist , chef , and literary firebrands like Ramperti and reproduced them in 1932’sLa Cucina Futurista(“The Futurist Cookbook ” ) , which also carry futuristic formula and instructions for host various form of Futurist dinner parties . But the thirties were an exceptionally turbulent decade for the country — whichfacedthe Great Depression , Adolf Hitler ’s grow influence , a warfare with Ethiopia , the Spanish Civil War , and eventuallyWorld War II — and Italian citizen were focalise less on what they were eat and more on simplyeating .
Furthermore , Futurism before long prevail afoul of fascism . In 1937 , Hitler decried modernistic art as “ degenerate , ” anti - nationalist , and somehow inherently Jewish . Though Marinettispoke outagainst these associations , anti - Semitism had already infected Italy , and fascists commence condemning the Futurist movement . Since Mussolini was courting Hitler as an friend , his regime ’s ties to Futurism could easy have become a political liability . In 1939 , when Marinetti published a fiery denial of Hitler ’s accusal in a Futurist daybook calledArtecrazia , the administration forced it to shutter .
So , by the forties , Marinetti was no longer retch consistent sulphuric acid against pasta , Il Duce was no longer supporting the Futurist apparent motion , and the world at large was consumed with much smashing threats than linguini - induced flatness . And if Marinetti ever entertain fantasies about resurrecting the lawsuit after the warfare , he never got the opportunity — he died of a heart blast in December 1944 , just months before the deaths of bothMussoliniandHitlerthe following April .
