The Eternal Table: A Cultural History of Food in Rome (Big City Food Biographies)

The Eternal Table: A Cultural History of Food in Rome is the first concise history of the food, gastronomy, and cuisine of Rome spanning from pre-Roman to modern times. It is a social history of the Eternal City seen through the lens of eating and feeding, as it advanced over the centuries in a city that fascinates like no other. The history of food in Rome unfolds as an engaging and enlightening narrative, recounting the human partnership with what was raised, picked, fished, caught, slaughtered, cooked, and served, as it was experienced and perceived along the continuum between excess and dearth by Romans and the many who passed through.

Like the city itself, Rome’s culinary history is multi-layered, both vertically and horizontally, from migrant shepherds to the senatorial aristocracy, from the papal court to the flow of pilgrims and Grand Tourists, from the House of Savoy and the Kingdom of Italy to Fascism and the rise of the middle classes. The Eternal Table takes the reader on a culinary journey through the city streets, country kitchens, banquets, markets, festivals, osterias, and restaurants illuminating yet another facet of one of the most intriguing cities in the world.

Karima Moyer-Nocchi was born and raised in the US, immigrating to the Italy in 1990. She is a professor at the University of Siena in the Modern Languages department and lectures in Food Studies at the University of Rome, Tor Vergata and the University of Oklahoma, Arezzo. Her first book, Chewing the Fat – An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita, an exposé about the mythologies regarding Italian food traditions was published in 2015 to critical acclaim. In the works is a cookbook of “assimilation cuisine,” exploring her personal culinary experiences as a permanent immigrant resident in Italy. She currently resides in Umbria.

Giancarlo Rolandi is a native Roman, Vice President of Slow Food Rome, and lectures in culinary history at the University of Rome. He is the director of the award-winning film Così mangiavano, and author of Hostaria cinema.