Tags
AICW, Association of Italian Canadian Writers, C, Gastronomic history, Grano Arso, Italian Canadiana, Laurentian University
My presentation from the September 2017 ‘Italians in Canada: 150+ years’ 31st anniversary AICW conference at Laurentian University in Sudbury Ontario has been published! The proceeds of the Association of Italian Canadian Writers Conference is a special edition of the University of Toronto journal Italian Canadiana (Vol 32 2018). This is not my first publication, but it is the first one that is not about diabetes!
Grano Arso is about a Pugliese gastronomic tradition that honours the resilience of our contadini ancestors. The conference proceedings are not available online, but if you have not already done so, read my 2015 post Grano Arso . It is not exactly the same as the publication, but contains similar information and photos. There has been an increase in views of my post. This may be due to the publication, or because there is not much written in English on the topic. I made some taralli di grano arso for my presentation and carried them with me on the plane to Ontario. 
Other conference presentations included The evolution of the Italian grocery store, Representations of Italian Canadian Internment during WWII, Italianismi e pseudoitalianismi, and Documenting Italiese, which I will write more about in another post. Creative writing readings by Italocanadese authors included short stories, poetry and excerpts from books and a graphic novel. I reviewed one of the books here.
I don’t know if they have many copies left, but they can be ordered by contacting the Frank Iacobucci Center for Italian Canadian Studies c/o Dept of Italian Studies, University of Toronto 100 St. Joseph St. Toronto, Ontario M5S 1J4 or contact salvatore.bancheri@utoronto.ca.
The next AICW conference will be in Italia in 2020. Details will be available soon!
Ciao, Cristina
Un po' di pepe 
Ciao Cristina
That’s awesome. Congrats. X
Grazie! Hope you get to try grano arso some day! Ciao, Cristina
Excellent news and you’ve piqued my curiosity with your very dark “grano arso” taralli. Clicking on the post now!
Well done!
Grazie Charlene! Give me a call before you go back to Firenze!
Complimenti per la pubblicazione della tua presentazione. The cultural and gastonomic resilience of the contadini is a very worthwhile topic and one close to my heart. a trip to Puglia is long overdue for me.
Sometimes I find that these traditions are preserved intact by the immigrants to teh New world- this is cerrtanly the case with the Italo-Australiani who do tings the old way, though now that the migrants from the 50s are diminishing in numbers, I wonder about the effects on this preservation, both for gastronomy and dialect.
Grazie Francesca! The culinary culture of Puglia is one of my favourite topics! You are totally right about traditions being preserved intact by immigrants and I wonder about the future preservation as well. Grano arso is definitely not a tradition that was taken to the ‘new world’ though. It was something no one wanted to remember. I don’t know if you read the original post, but my Papà’s reaction when I made pane di grano arso says it all! In terms of dialetto, several universities in Canada have projects documenting ‘italiese’ which I will write about at some point. In many places in Italia, dialetto is studied in schools as part of the culture, which I think is fantastic! I hope you make it to Puglia soon to try some orecchiette di grano arso! Ciao, Cristina
I am not aware of the migrants here bringing ‘gran arso’ so yes, it looks like I’ll have to try it there. I haven’t been back to Puglia since 2000 so a trip is long overdue.
I Dialetti are also preserved in unis here, but once the speakers go, things become fossilized. Once of my odd memories from my school teaching days was the dilemma of teaching Italian standard to kids who only knew Dialect. One agro boy from a Siciliano background refused to co-operate in class because I didn’t speak Italian like nonna!
That’s cute! I know how he felt. It is too bad dialetti were given a bad rap. I got in trouble a lot too, as I often didn’t know if a word was dialetto or ‘real’ Italian so it prevented me from speaking sometimes. Now I don’t care. I always remind people that dialetto are regional languages rather than the incorrect form of italiano. 😎
Outstanding Cristina! Congratulations
Thanks Teri! Finally something not about diabetes 😎
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