Oral History, Black Lives Matter and Chewing the Fat, A... History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita
"Are you seriously going to try to connect Oral History to Black Lives Matter with a book -- Chewing the Fat, An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita ?" my readers may ask... Well, yes, in fact, that's exactly what I'd like to do. Very recently, my Italian cousin had the brilliant idea of starting a book club. He gathered cousins most of whom have the same common place of origin: Nardo di Pace, Calabria. Our first book club book via Zoom was Chewing the Fat by Karima Moyer-Nocchi. Since this post is not a book review, I'll just point out that most of this nonfiction text consists of interviews with then (2015) 80+ and 90+ year old women who lived during the height of Fascist Italy. This book can, indeed, be filed under "oral history" among other headings. And I must say, not to take away from the interviews and the very informative research, my favourite chapter was Moyer-Nocchi's chapter on oral history. For me, it was a