Around the Dinner Table with Grazia : Food and Cooking in the Work of Grazia Deledda

Abstract

Around the Dinner Table with Grazia. Food and Cooking in the Work of Grazia Deledda, by Neria De Giovanni, highlights the love of Grazia Deledda (1871-1936) for Sardinians’ traditions, historic events, and food. It demonstrates how they follow an agropastoral economy and an extremely simple way of preparing food; they use vegetables and products from livestock farming and especially sheep; they respect traditional recipes, such as pane currasau, porcetto, and seadas, and conventional customs to conserve food as the preservation of fruit in the home attics. The selections of Deledda’s literary works that Neria De Giovanni proposed and remarked on in this volume evoke a passion for conviviality and congregation, accentuate the values of friendliness and sociability and may invite an intercultural dialogue and a mode of life guided by ideas of acceptance and respect for diversity.