On 7/16/2018 at 4:12 PM, Tri2Cook said:
That's a fair point but I was more thrown off by the idea that their would be cultural ramifications. I think the only cultural ramifications would be the people who do it by the book looking down their nose at those who don't. And that's fine, they're making the effort to do it by the book, they have the right to take pride in that. But I don't think there's going to be any impact on the Neapolitan culture because some guy in downtown East Overshoes, Vermont calls his 4-minute pie "Neapolitan style". Those who know better and care will laugh in his general direction and those who don't know better or care will buy his pizza and enjoy it if it's good... even if it isn't authentic. To run with your example, the idea of a fat free croissant is pretty silly and obviously incorrect but there won't be uprisings in France over cultural injustice if someone does it and still calls it a croissant.
Do you know many Neapolitans? I do. They're fiercely proud of their pizza- and rightly so. If you came up with arguably the best food on the planet, wouldn't you want the whole world to experience it- and not a shitty adulterated version of it? I guarantee you that the folks that wrote this document care about what happens in Vermont. And they're not looking down their nose on the adulterators, nor are they laughing at them. They're sad and angry because the perversion is robbing the uninitiated of the cherished experience their forefathers worked so hard to cultivate.
The French care pretty deeply about champagne, how do you know they wouldn't care about the adulteration of a croissant? The protection of champagne, of parmigiano reggiano, of balsamic vinegar- these protections have very obvious financial aspects, but there's also a substantial cultural component as well. "We, the rock star Reggio Emilians have come up with the pinnacle of cheese, we know that you, the rest of the world, are going to want to screw it up- are going to want to culturally appropriate it and commodify the crap out of it. Don't. And pay us."
Atrophy is the way of the world. If you make something truly wonderful and you don't find a way to protect it, to educate the rest of the world, it's not going to be around forever. I don't really enjoy paying 14.99 a pound for Parmigiano Reggiano, but I am unbelievably grateful that the Reggio Emilians went to/are going to such great lengths to make sure that I get to experience their cultural treasure. Just because the Neapolitans don't have lawyers attacking adulterators, it doesn't make their culture any less worthy of protection. In fact, I would argue that, without the mercenary component, Neapolitan pizza is more worthy of protection- that instead of lawyers threatening to sue, it's just people, like you and me, spreading the truth.
