Italian Cuisine

When Italy is mentioned, it is hard to not think about the countries prestigious cuisine.  People travel from different countries, and continents to get a first hand experience of the Italian cuisine.  In my opinion, no country is better known for its food than Italy is.  When you come to Italy, you know you are going to be eating a lot.  Italians pride themselves on their famous 5 to 7 course meals.  The first meal is called the antipasto, which means “before the meal”.  Traditional antipasto mostly includes cured meats, olives, and cheese.  Cheese is a major ingredient in almost every Italian dish.  The next course in the Italian meal structure is called “Primo” which means first.  In most cases, primo consists of a pasta dish but it is not uncommon to order a soup for primo.  

The next course is called “Secondo” , which means second.  During the secondo part of the meal, one can find themselves having a fish or meat dish.  The “Contorno” part of the meal is serves with the secondo dish and includes either a salad or some cooked vegetables.  Lastly, desert is served with coffee and/or sweets such as cake or cookies.

             Of course, no dish is complete without a glass/bottle of wine.  Italy is the second largest producer of wine in the world behind France, and is the largest exporter and consumer of wine.  Grapes are grown in every region in Italy, which has resulted in Italy having over 1 million vineyards throughout the whole country.

            In regards to Italian cuisine in Africa, there is a considerable amount of influence in African countries.  Specifically, Ethiopia, Libya, and Somalia, have a large amount of Italian cuisine in their culture.




Sources:


1) Capatti, Alberto and Montanari, Massimo. Italian Cuisine: a Cultural History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003


2) Dickie, John, Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and Their Food (New York, 2008)


3) Koplan, Steven; Smith, Brian H.; Weiss, Michael A.; Exploring Wine, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1996.

African Athlete In Italy

The reason for this topic stems from my interest and passion for sports.  Ever since I was a little kid, my whole life revolved around sports.  Therefore, the topic that most intrigued me when researching the African Diaspora and Italy are the impacts that African immigrants have on the sporting world in Italy.

            One of the most prominent African athletes in Italy is a soccer player named Matteo Ferrari.  Matteo had not lived in Italy his entire life.  He was born in 1979 in Algeria and lived there for about 3 years of his childhood.  His father is Italian but his mother is Guinean.  The family picked up and left to start their new lives in 1983, in a city located in Northern Italy called Ferrara.  He began to play soccer at a very young age, and was dominated competition.  By just the age of 16, Matteo Ferrari was playing professionally for a club in Italy.  I find this to be an extraordinary feat for two reasons.  The first obviously is his age, but the second is because he was one of the only black players in the entire league.  He had to deal with a lot of racism in his early career, and struggled because of it.  Things did get better for Ferrari; he was selected to be apart of the 2000 and 2004 Italian Olympic soccer team.  The dilemma he faced in this situation was that he also qualified to play for the Guinea soccer team.  Ferrari chose to play for Italy, which in my opinion symbolized his feelings of finally belonging in the Italian league as a black soccer player. 

            Ferrari continued to play soccer in Italy and eventually found his way into Major League Soccer.  He is currently playing for the Montreal club, where he is a starting defender.  I feel that although not internationally known as a top player, he is still incredibly successful.  He paved the way for other black Italians to succeed in a predominantly white soccer league.

Sources 

"Defender Matteo Ferrari joins the Impact in California". impactmontreal.com/en (Official Site of the Montreal Impact). 14 February 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2012.

"Know a player of African origin?". BBC News. 1 July 2005. Retrieved 1 March 2012.

Economy of Italy

Italy is a country that is known world wide as a country with a pretty stable and successful economy.  According to the CIA World Factbook, Italy has the seventh largest economy in the entire world.   In addition to its size, Italy’s Gross Domestic Product is ranked as the fourth highest in Europe.  Italy’s labor force is made up of 25 million citizens, and has an unemployment rate of 7.6% which .7% better than the United States’ unemployment rate.  The labor force of Italy tends to migrate toward occupations in services, which include jobs in areas such as maintenance, construction, education, finance, and many more.  Jobs in industry are the next highest occupied jobs, and then lastly, accounting for 4% of the occupied jobs is work in agriculture. 

            In regards to their foreign policies, Italy imports and exports many goods to stimulate their economy.  Italy’s main exports are engineering products, textiles, and motor vehicles.  Italy’s main export partner is Germany.  Italy imports a lot of chemicals, transport equipment and energy products, again, mainly from Germany.  Compared to most countries, Italy relies heavily on their imports and exports to stimulate their economy.

            Currently, Italy is dealing with a lot of economic struggle.  According to Jordan Weissmen (2011) Italy’s debt is turning into a serious problem not only for themselves, but for the rest of the world.  Weissman also reveals that there are four specific reasons why the Italy economy is such a disaster right now.  The first reason is because of the debt.  They are second in Europe only behind Greece, and their debt is more than double than the countries GDP.  This means that Italy’s economy is drastically declining and has negative growth.  The second reason noted for the recent downfall of the Italian economy is that the productivity has significantly declined compared to the rest of the world.  Italy is badly struggling while having to compete with Asian countries and the USA in terms of productivity levels.  A third reason that Weissman points out is that there is too much corruption in the government.  This puts Prime Minisiter Monti in a tough situation as he tries to rally his country out of this debt.  Lastly, the southern part of Italy is where most of the slacking occurs.  Weissman reveals that the northern and central parts of Italy have a 40% higher GDP than the south does.  This only spells trouble. 

Thanks for reading!

           

Weissman, J.  (2011).  4 reasons why Italy’s economy is such a disaster.  The Atlantic.  Retrieved 2/20/12.  www.theatlantic.com

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP.pdf

CIA World Factbook; Italy; Economy". CIA. 2009-03-19. Retrieved 2012-02-20.

Italy's Government

Hello everyone!  I am excited to present my second blog post to all you readers. The main focus of this post will to be on the political structure of Italy.  Italy’s first type of government was a republic.  Communists tried to take power in the 1960's, but the Christian Democratic party was too strong, and was able to resist all communist influence on the Italian government.  As the years passed Italy went from a socialist government in the 1970’s, to a communist government in the 1980’s, and then back to the original government system; a republic.  Italy became a republic again in 2001 and has continued to be a republic to this day.

            In Italy’s democratic republic system there is a President and a Prime Minister.  The President of Italy is Giorgio Napolitano and the Prime Minister is Mario Monti. What is interesting about this system is that the President is not nearly as powerful as the Prime minister.   President Napolitano’s job is to make sure that the Italian government is following the rules of the Italian constitution.  He is there to prevent any corruption in the government, as well as to promote togetherness among the people country.  Prime Minister Mario Monti sits at the top of the Executive Branch, which consists of the Council on Ministers and of course, Mario Monti.  In addition to the Executive Branch, there is the Legislative branch, which made up of two houses of Parliament.  Lastly, the Judicial branch is separate from the other two branches.  Italy’s system of separation of powers can be related to the type of Democracy implemented today in the United States.

            Today, there is economic turmoil all across Europe, and the Italian economy is taking a beating.  Prime Minister Mario Monti is doing everything he can to “right the ship”.   Not only does Monti have to fix Italy, but a lot of the issues surrounding the Economy of the entire world rests on his shoulders.  In an article regarding Monti and the Economic situation in Europe, Michael Schuman (2012) writes “Monti's mission matters to everybody--from Wall Street financiers to Chinese factory workers. That's because Italy's problems have become the world's problems, and Monti must fix Italy to prevent another global financial crisis”.  Talk about pressure!  I cannot believe the stress that Monti is going through right now; knowing that if he doesn’t find a solution to Italy’s economic failures, the whole world could be affected. 

             

President Mario Monti Above.

This concludes my blog about the Italian government!  Check back in next week for more, thank you!

                                                           

                                                            References

Schuman, M.  The most important man in Europe.  Time.  37 (1), p. 28-30.

"Italian Prime Minister survives senate vote". BBC News. 2007-02-28. Retrieved 2010-08-09.

http://energytrends.pnl.gov/italy/it004.htm