Article; Food in Italy, Fascist Era

[sailorsam]

article about food supplies in Fascist Italy.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tales-of ... ccounter=1

My parents were children during the Nazi occupation, when food was very hard to come by, and only available on the black market at outrageous prices. My mother's family left the city for their mountain village where, at least, the occasional egg and fruits and vegetables were still available.

I understand Italy traded oranges and similar foodstuffs to Germany in exchange for coal.

who knows about food in Fascist Italy? apparently Italy has always struggled to feed itself. did they go into North Africa and Greece partly to secure more food?

[sailorsam]

another article
http://contemporaryfoodlab.com/hungry-p ... der-pasta/

Mussolini’s Fascist regime quickly decided that, in their ideal future society, Italians would have to change the way they ate, and pasta was to become Public Enemy Number One under this food ideology. On this point Mussolini had support from the artists of Italian Futurism, who claimed that pasta made people weak and lazy – not exactly good soldiers for the war they constantly championed. Mussolini’s grudge against pasta, however, was less ideological and more political: Italy desperately needed to stop relying on foreign countries for wheat.

article mentions that pasta comes from a certain type of wheat (durum) which doesn't grow well in most if Italy.

Italians traditionally love their food. I'm sure this sort of thing did not endear Il Duce to his people.

[DrG]

The topic is quite wide. I could dig out several statistics about food in Italy in WW2 or during Fascism, but do you need something specific? Maybe some of them are available also online, such as in the yearbooks of the League of Nations.

With regards to the occupation of Libya, while the colonization of Cyrenaica by farmers was seen as an oportunity to increase food production, it didn't get much success before the war, and was centered mostly on typical African fruits. The attack on Greece was aimed in small part also at getting food, but not to take it from a country such as Greece itself that was in deficit, instead to open the sea routes to USSR.

If ever there is a thing that everybody who lived in WW2 told me, it was that they were hungry. Every single one, rich or poor. For example, in my town a man was shot dead by a farmer because he was trying to steal fruits from a tree in 1944, and still shortly after the war people unhearted and ate cattle that had been killed and buried because it was ill of carbuncle and thus dangerous for human health.

[sailorsam]

thanks for your response

I'm just curious / interested in the food situation.
were rice and potatoes common and available?

[Sheldrake]

Read this. https://www.lifeinitaly.com/history/ita ... world-war/

IRRC the italian civilian ration only provided about 600 Kcal.

[sailorsam]

great article Sheldrake! thanks much for sharing.

most people are aware that Italy lacked the industrial base to be a major (war) power; it also lacked the agricultural base.

[DrG]

The article linked by Sheldrake is just a sum of clichés...

Anyway, agricultural production declined in 1942 and, more, in 1943, then strongly decreased in 1944 and collapsed in 1945. Given also the collapse of internal trade due to bombings and the separation of North and South Italy by the frontline, some areas, such as Naples, suffered much more than the rest of the country.

[sailorsam]

post by DrG » 16 Feb 2021, 16:56
The article linked by Sheldrake is just a sum of clichés...

you're more than welcome to post your own article

[Berto]

That's a fairly stupid answer, dear sailor.

No article is better than an article full of factual errors.

[DrG]

Sailorsam, what should I say, that it was a masterpiece? It is the typical article mixing facts and memories and cliches, with the additional problem that it mixes them between the situation before the armistice of 8 September 1943 and after it, which, especially with regards to food, were extremely different.

Anyway, here you will find any information you may need on Italian agricultural production in WW2. Best wishes.
https://ebiblio.istat.it/digibib/Agrico ... 9_1942.pdf
https://ebiblio.istat.it/digibib/Agrico ... 3_1946.pdf

[sailorsam]

Berto » Today, 15:50
That's a fairly stupid answer, dear sailor.
No article is better than an article full of factual errors.

perhaps you'd care to identify some of the errors and maybe cite some sources/corrections?

[sailorsam]

DrG » Today, 16:16
Sailorsam, what should I say, that it was a masterpiece? It is the typical article mixing facts and memories and cliches, with the additional problem that it mixes them between the situation before the armistice of 8 September 1943 and after it, which, especially with regards to food, were extremely different.

facts are helpful.
memories are first-hand facts.
contributions to our knowledge are appreciated. this forum exists for us to learn and share information.
I found the article informative. I appreciate the contribution.

[DrG]

Sailorsam, I have been posting in this forum for more than a decade, seldom asking information but often providing them to other members. You have spent a week here and dare to tell me how forums work. I have provided you the most comprehensive source available online, albeit in Italian language (by the way, I was willing to translate part of it for you, if you hadn't behaved in this way), and you come here criticizing my posts without even saying thank you. But you prefer packaged bullshit, because it's convenient, easy, in English, and in line with your prejudices ("Italians traditionally love their food", yeah, because instead other people like to eat crap. And Italians loved their food so much that their meals, also before the war and then well into the Fifities-Sixties, were made of bread and pasta, pasta and bread, a bit of cheese and, in the North, lots of polenta. Wow, what a lavish diet, we surely loved it!).

I will never reply to you again.

[sailorsam]

Sailorsam, I have been posting in this forum for more than a decade, seldom asking information but often providing them to other members. You have spent a week here and dare to tell me how forums work. I have provided you the most comprehensive source available online, albeit in Italian language (by the way, I was willing to translate part of it for you, if you hadn't behaved in this way), and you come here criticizing my posts without even saying thank you.

you're right. I should have thanked you for your contribution.

But you prefer packaged bullshit, because it's convenient, easy, in English, and in line with your prejudices ("Italians traditionally love their food", yeah, because instead other people like to eat crap.

valid point. but I do think Italians are more food-oriented than most.

And Italians loved their food so much that their meals, also before the war and then well into the Fifities-Sixties, were made of bread and pasta, pasta and bread, a bit of cheese and, in the North, lots of polenta. Wow, what a lavish diet, we surely loved it!).

source?

I will never reply to you again.

okay.

[sailorsam]

deleted. article was on Italians in America, not Italy. oopsie.