Pasta with sardines: for a topical of the typical

Abstract

Sicilian cookbooks present couscous as an identity bulwark of the regional cuisine, but also as an extremely complicated dish to replicate. The enunciators themselves seem to be tested by the long and elaborate preparation: they have to venture into complicated turns of phrase to give the idea of which gestural phrases are required of the cook, they must explain the conformation and composition of the tools to be used, they must systematize the steps to be taken, dosing as always what needs to be said and what can be taken for granted. It is much simpler to cook couscous with pre-cooked semolina, ready in a short time and to be seasoned at will: the internet gives a thousand variations, turning to a perhaps less skilled cook, but certainly more practical than the one assumed by traditional recipe books. In short, a variegated panorama is outlined in which the recipes of couscous become on the one hand texts that use different strategies for the construction of the effect of typicality, on the other starting points for discussing values and ethical issues, of identity and cultural contamination.