Talk:Carciofi alla giudia

Carciofi alla giudea

A short while ago I added the Italian-language name of this dish, Carciofi alla giudea, to the article, since that is the name that is commonly used for it in reliable English-language sources and indeed in many Italian-language sources also. The addition was removed with the comment "Not existing washed in Arno name removed". Following fruitful discussion with the same user elsewhere, I'd like to see where some discussion of this might lead. The points I see as relevant:

• it is not the correct name - the regional variant spelling "giudìa" is recognised and used by many non-Roman sources, and is the unquestionably predominant spelling all over Italy
• the other name does exist
• it is used in Italian sources such as, to name but one, Luigi Veronelli, Lazio. Milano: Garzanti, 1968, p. 59.
• it is the standard name for the dish in English-language sources, including Elizabeth David in Italian Food, Alan Davidson in The Oxford Companion to Food, Rose Gray in The River Café Cookbook, Claudia Roden in The Book of Jewish Food and so on; there are some exceptions: Marcella Hazan uses the romanesco spelling in one book, but the Italian in another (I can supply page numbers for each of these if needed; some people have books on Roman topography, I have cookery books ...)
• this isn't just a spelling mistake that has become commonplace, like "carciofi all giudea", which gets a surprising number of Google hits; it's the name by which the dish is overwhelmingly known in English, and happens also to be "correct" Italian, even if not exactly washed in the Arno.

So I think the variant spelling has a place in the article; the grammar and etymology and so on, which are a bit of a muddle at the moment, can then easily be sorted out. Thoughts? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:05, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Ciao Justlettersandnumbers, it's me again. :-) I removed the Italian spelling, since this is a regional roman dish, existing only in Rome and surroundings. This happens because to do it you need the roman artichokes, which grows only north-west of the city, on the seaside. In Rome (I am Roman, although in exile), if you try to order a "Carciofo alla giudea", the least that you can obtain in return is a LOL. In other words, "Carciofo alla giudea" in the eternal city is a not existing expression. "Washed in Arno", means that the "other" (northern) Italians performed an italianisation (toscanisation) of the name. This happens for two reasons: a certain felt cultural superiority of the Northerner towards the Romans, and the fact that the roman dialect is so near to standard Italian, that for many Italians the adjective sounds "wrong" and must be corrected. BTW, the translation "giudeo" is not correct, since the italian word for "giudío" is "ebreo". (See Ravaro, "Dizionario Romanesco")

About the English sources, these are mostly tertiary sources, and should be used only if someone has not access to the Italian ones, since - after all - this is not a British or American dish. Among the Italian, we use in order of preference first the roman sources:

• Boni ("Talismano della felicità", "Cucina romana": this is the classic on the subject);
• Carnacina-Buonassisi ("Roma in cucina");
• Malizia ("La cucina ebraico-romanesca");
• Jannattoni ("La cucina romana e del Lazio")
• Giaquinto ("La cucina di famiglia", which I don't have -yet- shame on myself! :-))

and then the Italian: among them, the most important are

• Gosetti ("Le ricette regionali italiane", possibly the most important book about modern Italian cuisine ever written)
• Carnacina "Il cucchiaio d'argento" (which I don't have too)

All the sources which I have use the spelling "giudío". About Veronelli, he was a great wine expert, but IMO not a gastronome (BTW, the work that you cite is one of these books sold in the newsstand): moreover, he came from Veneto, and a venetian writing about this dish is like me deciding about the spelling of "risi e bisi". :-) What I mean, a source is not equal to another source, and the major sources point overwhelmingly in the direction "giudia".

Now, how to solve all this? i think that the most elegant way to solve that would be a redirect (exactly like google, which while searching for "carciofi alla giudea" with 'verbatim' option says "did you mean carciofi alla giudia" ?). So, the English speaking people using anglo-saxon books would know that the correct name is another one and land on the article. If you absolutely want to put it in the article, maybe one could write at the end of the lead (and not in bold) something like ("the name of the dish outside Rome is something italianised in "Carciofi alla giudea" "). Alex2006 (talk) 06:33, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

[1] vs. [2].

Carciofi alla giudia a recipe in a famous restaurant in the ghetto of Roma.

--Carlo Morino aka zi' Carlo 08:45, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

p.s. I'm a 67 aged (old?) Roman. Never heard carciofi alla giudea . "Giudea" in Italian is a region of ancient Near East, not a name of its inhabitants. Giudio it's a name of an hebrew in the dialect of Rome. --Carlo Morino aka zi' Carlo 08:45, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, there seem so be some misconceptions here.

• On whether or not giudeo is an Italian word, please see the Treccani entry already cited in the article, or indeed that for giudeo. It is the Italian word of which giudio is a regional dialect variant, and is found in compounds such as giudeo-romanesco, the name of that particular dialect variant.
• Our purpose here is not to write a City of Rome encyclopaedia, but a world encyclopaedia. Like it or not, carciofi alla giudea has achieved the status of a world dish. And, like it or not, in English it is normally so written.
• I'm aware that most non-Roman Italian sources use the regional spelling, and that Veronelli is an exception (and yes, I had of course already checked in Gosetti della Salda before posting above). Unfortunately the point here is not what spelling is predominant in Italy, but what spelling is predominant in English. Just to be clear, the article should probably be moved to the "giudea" spelling, though I'm not myself going to suggest that.
• The English-language sources I have cited above are among the most respected and influential cookery writers of the last 50 years or so; one is Italian, at least two are Jewish. These are not news-stand sources.

I made the redirect here from the usual spelling some time ago. Now it needs to be included (and explained, of course) in the article itself. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:20, 25 May 2013 (UTC) Ciao JustlettersandNumbers, my answers:

• Never said that 'giudeo' is not italian. I just wrote that the meaning of 'giudeo' in Italian is different from 'giudio' in Roman;

• Wrong. "Carciofi alla giudia" was born in Rome and remains a roman dish, for the reason written above. I live in Switzerland, and here (only 650 km from Rome) is impossible to get the roman artichokes: and without roman artichokes, no carciofi alla giud[i/e]a are possible. I would agree with you if this dish would have reached a world diffusion like caffellatte (in USA they call it latte - in Italy you get a glass of milk for that word :-) - but I never thought to correct it), but this is not the case. Maybe you meant that got a world fame? Anyway,

• In Latin there is a nice sentence: 'Ubi maior, minor cessat'. About the sources (newsstand source was Veronelli, who infested the newstands for decades, not the others) I am sure that they are highly respectable, but I am also sure that these authors wrote their books using Italian sources (in this sense I call them "tertiary source"). Just to be clear, none of them never directed "La Cucina italiana" for 30 years like Anna Gosetti did, or was one of the main Italian chefs as Carnacina was, or traveled 3 years long (in the sixties, when the traditional cooking was still strong) all around Italy to collect on the field recipes, as Gosetti did. The total absence of success of these authors in Italy tells a lot about the usefulness of these works in comparison with our works.

• To conclude (again) one can say that the poor artichokes have been victim of a case a "linguistic cleansing", possibly in the fifties or sixties of last century, the "Non si dice" period of the roman "borghesia". At hat time it was considered as highly rude invite someone to 'pranzo' ("lunch") because you had to say 'colazione', since so dictated the 'bon ton' of the northern people, although for us in Rome this word means breakfast. Thanks God, these times are over. :-)

So, since the redirect is already there, we can put the milanese :-) denomination in the lead as I wrote above. What do you think about it? Alex2006 (talk) 11:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Hallo Justlettersandnumbers, after sleeping on what you wrote, and asking some advice, I arrived to the conclusion that we must put also the "wrong" name in the lead. The key is in MOS:LEADALT. In other words, if 30 years ago Elisabeth Vattelapesca, instead of going to Piperno at monte de' Cenci, asked the name of the recipe of these artichokes to Countess Serbelloni Mazzanti Viendalmare from Milan, and she told her that "giudia" was a plebeian word, well, we have to live with that (at least until some American or British gastronome with philological interests appears on the scene). :-) At this point, I promise that I will never revert you again. :-) Alex2006 (talk) 08:40, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I saw this. I had avoided mentioning MOS:LEADALT because I thought we would reach agreement through enjoyable discussion rather than by invoking the deus ex machina. I've now made some changes to the article for your consideration; I don't see what I have written as in any way definitive. I have to admit you lost me a bit above with the distinction between prima and seconda colazione (which I've always found quite clear) and the linguistic cleansing, but no matter. You are of course entitled to your low opinion of English-language cookery writers (which in many, many cases I share); but a few of them (including for certain Elizabeth David and Marcella Hazan) have contributed substantially to the revolution that has transformed Italian cuisine into a world culture. The lack of interest in them within Italy is of course entirely unsurprising; but their notability in the English-speaking world is considerably greater than that of Ada Boni, Luigi Carnacina, Anna Gosetti della Salda, or indeed of Pellegrino Artusi. Some of what they wrote may be wrong; we all make mistakes. I suggest that they can nevertheless be regarded as reliable sources for English-language usage. I hope you can agree.

Just out of curiosity, what is the oldest reference to this dish? Does it have a long documented history, or is it another neo-traditional dish like Spaghetti alla carbonara?

Also, do you think that this quote from Claudia Roden has a place in the article: "many Jews in Italy cannot name one single Jewish Italian dish apart from carciofi alla giudea"? Along with text that says that this is not so much a famous Roman Jewish dish as the famous Roman Jewish dish? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:11, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Hallo Justlettersandnumbers, maybe I explained me wrongly: I did not want an all to diminish the importance of these writers in the English speaking world, and I don't expect that the American average cook goes and buys the italian editions of Gosetti or Boni, but I see these writers as evangelists, not as researchers, as Boni, Gosetti and others have been. There has been a period in Italy when Italians ashamed themselves of their cooking, trying to imitate the French. Their great credit has been to research recipes and dishes everywhere, just before they were going to disappear, doing an ethnological work. Due to that I put them naturally above the writers that you mentioned (but I just ordered in the ZB a book of Elisabeth David, so I will tell you my definitive opinion after having read it).
Back to the artichokes :-), the sentence that you cite IMHO is not correct. I cannot speak for Jews of other cities, but the roman Jews are a very strong and compact community: while most of the roman city center has been sadly totally gentrified during the last 25 years, in the ghetto still live many Jews which keep their traditions and cuisine. There are several roman Jewish dishes which remain quite popular in Rome, also fra i gentili:

• Brodo d'Arzilla, (I ate it last time 3 monts ago);
• aliciotti con l'indivia;
• pizza giudia (nothing to do with pizza, is a little cake);
• mostaccioli; (pay attention about your teeth, they can reach easily grade 8 of Mohs Scale :-))
• torta di visciole;

just to cite the most important. In via del Portico d'Ottavia there is a little oven, where old Jewish women sell these cakes (I went there last time last Monday and had a piece of Pizza Giudia - not Piazza Giudea - :-)) . Three years ago we went to the Sala Margana, a beautiful place in Rione Campitelli, and had a great meal with only roman Jewish dishes, organized for the European day of Jewish culture. The food had been prepared by the women of the ghetto, and we spoke with them about their cuisine. About the oldest reference, the carciofi alla giudia are very old. I read somewhere that they are attested since the middle of 16th century, but I have to see if this is true or is only a PR gag of some Jewish restaurant. :-) Anyway, nothing in common with the (U.S. Army powered :-)) Carbonara! About the last question, yes, they are THE roman Jewish dish for antonomasia. But now it is almost time to have dinner: all this writing about food (and which food :-)) made me hungry... Alex2006 (talk) 15:24, 27 May 2013 (UTC)