Cynthia wrote:According to a recent magazine article...
Which one? This
one?
... while there is in fact a dish called chicken Vesuvio in Naples, Italy, it's not like what we call chicken Vesuvio in Chicago...
My knowledge of Neapolitan cuisine -- through personal experience in family settings here and in Italy, through travel in Campania over more than two decades, and through scholarly research -- is extensive and I know of no chicken dish thus named, though, as I noted elsewhere in this thread, Neapolitans fairly frequently use the Vesuvio name for dishes of one sort or another within narrow circles. Certainly more widespread than any putative chicken preparation under that name is a pasta dish but in this regard I must say that I have over the years seen various, more or less different pasta dishes referred to with the same Vesuvio name; the name is available for inconsistent use precisely because it doesn't have a set meaning in the traditional Neapolitan repertoire.
...and the Chicago version was, according to the article, which quotes the Capitaninis, third generation owners of the Italian Village, as saying that the Chicago version was being served at the Italian Village in the 1930s. The article also mentions culinary historian Judith Dunbar Hines as believing that Alfredo Capitanini was, in fact, the first to introduced the American/Chicago version of the dish...
It should be noted that in the article I linked above, which perhaps is the one referred to in the previous post, it is not quite clear whether Mr. Capitanini is claiming that there is a chicken dish called 'Vesuvio' in Naples. The way I read the text is to say that there is a dish that in his estimation is close enough to be possibly identified with his restaurant's dish and yet, in his own eyes, that dish is in some particular way(s) actually "quite different."
While
Judith Dunbar Hines is surely an active and knowledgeable student of things culinary, I have never come across her name in connexion with the subject of Neapolitan or more generally, for that matter, Italian cuisine. Given her connexion to Chicago, however, I would not be surprised that she might believe and espouse the view that the dish was 'invented' here, especially since she appears to be "coordinator of Culinary Arts and Events for the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs." It seems to me that to look to someone in that position -- who is not, so far as one can tell, especially deeply engaged in the study of Neapolitan or Italian cuisine -- for independent scholarship in this regard is unwise.
I don't know if that constitutes "proof," but at least it carries the dish back to before some of the memories of chicken Vesuvio recounted in a few posts.
Hardly does that constitute proof. That individual restaurants vie to have recognised their claim that they invented a dish is a commonplace of popular culinary history and in this specific case, there are various claimants to the title of inventor.* Needless to say, the vast majority of such claims are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Given the independent existence of the dish elsewhere under traditionally prosaic appellations, it remains clear to those who are not blinded by what Vico referred to as the "Conceit of Nations" that the original Chicago innovation in this regard was merely the name of the dish.
Antonius
* Vergleichen Sie bitte zum Beispiel:
Pitsákia me Elliniká Systatiká: Little Pizzas with Greek Ingredients
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=68818#68818
Alle Nerven exzitiert von dem gewürzten Wein -- Anwandlung von Todesahndungen -- Doppeltgänger --
- aus dem Tagebuch E.T.A. Hoffmanns, 6. Januar 1804.
________
Na sir is na seachain an cath.