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Part of
Talking about Food: The social and the global in eating communities
Edited by Sofia Rüdiger and Susanne Mühleisen
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 47] 2020
► pp. 211–234

Chapter 11
A rich sauce of comedy

Talking and laughing about Italian food in digital spaces

| Bologna University
Food has been a traditional source of humour since the beginning of time but nowadays it would appear that the way we joke about food has changed as comedians have begun to target food fads and dietary choices in new online formats such as YouTube videos and memes. In this chapter, I explore traditional food jokes, that now occur online in multimodal formats such as memes and gifs, that target Italians. I also discuss how Italians themselves use humour to defend traditional dishes that they believe are corrupted by people outside Italy who manipulate and localize original recipes. Providing examples from Twitter and online newspaper fora, I will argue that Italians adopt humour to make serious points.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Food and humour, humour and food
    • 2.1Italian food memes
      • 2.1.1Italians and abundance
      • 2.1.2Italian food and military incompetence
  • 3.Food, identity and cultural appropriation
    • 3.1Italians mad at food
      • 3.1.1Grandmothers
      • 3.1.2Don’t call me by that name
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 June 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.47.11chi
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