研究所、轉學考(插大)、學士後-英文題庫下載題庫

        Three days a week, a retired agricultural officer named Teodoro sets to work in the back of what was once a small roadside shop about an hour and a half south of Rome, making a cheese that has twice come close to extinction. Using a stirring stick and a large aluminum vat, he curdles sheep’s milk into small wheels of cheese, which he shapes by hand and sets on a table to dry. Il Conciato di San Vittore, as the cheese is called, represents the deepest roots of Italian culinary production—small scale, artisanal, steeped in history. Yet the chances for its survival would be slim if not for a recent partnership with an Italian business operating on a vastly different scale: the newly opened Eataly supermarket in central Rome. 

        With four floors of aisles and restaurants connected by moving walk ways and glass elevators, the location is the gourmet chain’s newest and biggest, a flagship in the Italian capital to complement its branches in New York City, Tokyo, Torino and Milan. Mario Batali, a partner in the booming New York outpost, has turned Eataly into a hit by selling Americans on the appeal of traditional Italian culture. Eataly, in fact, is much more than that. With its big-box décor, globe-spanning ambitions and innovative marketing, it represents an opportunity for Italians to reclaim a culinary heritage that’s slipping away. On the broad spectrum of food culture, Eataly and Il Conciato di San Vittore are a world apart, yet each would be lost without the other. 

        Until a couple of generations ago, Italy was still largely an agricultural country, and many people made their own cheeses, hams, jams and sauces. Those who didn’t buy them from small vendors in their local market. But industrialization and urbanization have withered those links to the land. Women have left the kitchen for the workplace. Morning markets have given way to grocery stores. Small-scale artisans have succumbed to national producers’ economies of scale. In 1996 roughly 40% of Italy’s food was sold by small, traditional retailers. A decade later that percentage had been cut in half. “Nobody wanted to go to the market any more, where it smelled and you were pressed inside with others,” some commented.