Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves Quotes

“Eating chestnuts is a sign of poverty. Because wheat bread is eaten in the city, chestnut bread is associated with the poor country table.”
― Gary Paul Nabhan, Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves: An American Naturalist in Italy

“This provincialism certainly has its detractors, but it is not the same as myopia. At its core is a heartfelt appreciation for local resources and traditions. This appreciation has fostered the rich cultural, agricultural, and culinary heritage that has characterized much of rural Italy, as well as many other peasant cultures around the world.”
― Gary Paul Nabhan, Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves: An American Naturalist in Italy

“The sentiment underlying this local possessiveness of distinctive crops, foods, and customs is known in Italy as campanilismo. It is somewhat negatively defined in dictionaries as 'an excessive attraction to one's own homeland or birthplace.' As it is derived from the word for bell, campana, a more literal definition might be 'belief or faith in what lies within earshot of the village bell.”
― Gary Paul Nabhan, Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves: An American Naturalist in Italy