Food - Drink
Italy's Marinetti Pasta Has A Controversial History
By AUTUMN SWIERS
Made with tomato sauce filled with salty capers, butter-sautéed artichokes, anchovies, diced ham, and chopped pistachios, Marinetti pasta is texturally diverse and packed with flavor. Thus, it’s no surprise that the award-winning pasta is popular with foodies, but despite its popularity, the dish has a controversial origin.
The pasta dish is named after Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who founded the Futurist movement and was notoriously anti-pasta. The pasta is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the writer, and while Marinetti didn’t literally want to outlaw pasta, he saw pasta as a symbol of Italian attachment to tradition, which he considered the great block to cultural growth.
Marinetti wrote pasta causes "laziness, pessimism, nostalgic inactivity, and neutralism,” and suggested banning utensils and eating unappetizing food. The controversy continued when Marinetti joined fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in banishing pasta, but to his credit, Futurism was innovative for recognizing food as art and challenging what food could be.