O encontro entre o tradicional e o novo: autenticidade e restaurantes na cidade de São Paulo

Abstract

This paper presents a discussion about the role of the tradition and authenticity in Italian cooking and restaurants in São Paulo, Brazil. The data was collected during my previous research (2006-2009) when the focus was on the idea of cuisine like a system and process where the practical operation exposes social relationships and, in fact of this, work on identities. The ethnography opens many ways to think about the role of cooking and food around the cultural adaptation and in particular of the Italian immigrants in a new context: urban, strange and huge. For this, the way adopted was enter in the process of the cuisine by the memories of the owners of these restaurants, which are selected by a special criteria, have more than fifty years of existence and divide this trajectory in three main parts: the first period of immigration around the first decade of 20th century, the 1950 and 1960’s for enter at the new urban rhythms and the globalization years, specially at 1990’s when the city was called “Mundial Capital of Gastronomy”. Adopting this, we could discuss the arrangements between authenticity, tradition and nationality. The final considerations show that these ideas become part of the urban imaginary followed by the ideas of progress and work that marked the Italian trajectory at São Paulo.