Anti-Pasta: A Historical Look at the Italian Futurists' War on Pasta

On November 15, 1930, at a lavish banquet in Milan, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti shocked his audience by proclaiming that pasta was a food of the past. He argued that it misled people into believing it was healthy, while actually making them sluggish, pessimistic, and slow-witted. Marinetti's bold statement called for pasta to be replaced by rice instead.

This marked the beginning of an unusual chapter in culinary history: a bold campaign against Italy’s beloved staple. Marinetti’s radical stance sparked passionate debates and had connections to the political atmosphere of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime.

The Rice Advocate

Marinetti's initial statement gained traction largely because of his prominent influence in society. In 1909, his 'Manifesto of Futurism' sparked the Futurist movement, advocating for a break from outdated traditions in favor of the technological advancements of the future. Although initially focused on art, Futurism was also a nationalist endeavor, aiming to propel the newly unified Italy forward to rival global powers. The movement closely aligned with Mussolini's political campaign, and the two men worked together as they formed their respective political groups—Marinetti's 'Fasci Politici Futuristi' and Mussolini's 'Fasci di Combattimento'—as World War I concluded. By the early 1920s, Marinetti had distanced himself from Mussolini, though he continued to reference Il Duce's policies when they served his own agenda.

As for the pasta ban, Mussolini’s government had already begun promoting rice in place of pasta to reduce Italy's reliance on imported wheat. Rice was more easily produced domestically, and in the late 1920s, Mussolini established the 'National Rice Board' and declared November 1 as 'National Rice Day.' As Philip McCouat notes in the 'Journal of Art History,' Mussolini never outright banned macaroni, but by the time Marinetti launched his anti-pasta campaign, Italians were already familiar with the anti-pasta sentiment.

On December 28, 1930, Marinetti followed his banquet speech with the 'Manifesto of Futurist Cooking,' co-written with the artist Luigi Colombo ('Fillìa') and published in Turin’s 'Gazzetta del popolo.' In the manifesto, they dismissed pasta as an 'absurd Italian gastronomic religion' and described pasta enthusiasts as 'chained by its ball and chain like convicted lifers or bearing its ruins in their stomachs like archaeologists.'

In essence, the Futurists believed pasta held Italians back from realizing their full potential. Their grand vision was for the government to replace traditional food with nutritional pills, powders, and other artificial substitutes. Until such innovations could be developed, however, they were willing to settle for replacing pasta with rice. 'And remember too,' they wrote, 'that the abolition of pasta will free Italy from costly foreign wheat and boost the Italian rice industry.'

The Battle of Starches: Enemies and Allies

Marinetti’s initial speech sparked a small revolt among Italians, but his written manifesto propelled the issue onto the world stage. The 'Chicago Tribune' captured the global attention with an article titled 'Fascist Writer, All Wound Up in Health Subject, Begs Countrymen to Swallow New Theory.' The article, titled 'Italy May Down Spaghetti,' appeared just two days after the manifesto was published.

Smaller media outlets also took up the controversy. 'No, signor. We beg you, please call off your holy war,' Ernest L. Meyer wrote in Madison, Wisconsin’s 'The Capital Times.' 'Would you really ban macaroni and all its lyrically named relatives—macaroncelli, foratini, maglietti, ditalini, vermicelli—and reduce Italians to the bland monotony of beans, cabbage, chops, chard, and chewing gum? Alas, signor, there is no poetry in your soul, and your palate lacks sophistication.'

People living everywhere from France to Australia commented on the matter, but nowhere was the response more impassioned than in Italy. Women in the city of L’Aquila sent Marinetti a protest letter, and the mayor of Naples went so far as to proclaim that “the Angels in Paradise eat nothing but vermicelli with tomato sauce.” (Marinetti later retorted that this was simply proof of “the unappetizing monotony of Paradise and of the life of the Angels.”) But Futurism wasn’t unpopular, and the pasta ban had ardent advocates of its own. Italian writer Marco Ramperti, for example, lambasted the beloved repast in a highly imaginative op-ed.

“[Pasta] puffs out our cheeks like grotesque masks on a fountain, it stuffs our gullets as if we were Christmas turkeys, it ties up our insides with its flabby strings; it nails us to the chair, gorged and stupefied, apoplectic and gasping, with [a] sensation of uselessness …” he wrote. “Our thoughts wind round each other, get mixed up and tangled like the vermicelli we’ve taken in.”

The Movement Loses Steam

Marinetti collected the best testimonies from scientists, chefs, and literary firebrands like Ramperti and reproduced them in 1932’s La Cucina Futurista (“The Futurist Cookbook”), which also contained Futurist recipes and instructions for hosting various kinds of Futurist dinner parties. But the 1930s were an exceptionally tumultuous decade for the country—which faced the Great Depression, Adolf Hitler’s growing influence, a war with Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, and eventually World War II—and Italian citizens were focused less on what they were eating and more on simply eating.

Futurism soon found itself at odds with fascism. In 1937, Hitler condemned modern art as 'degenerate,' anti-nationalist, and, in his view, fundamentally Jewish. While Marinetti opposed these associations, anti-Semitism had already spread throughout Italy, and fascists began denouncing the Futurist movement. As Mussolini sought to align with Hitler, the regime's connections to Futurism began to pose a political risk. In 1939, Marinetti responded to Hitler’s claims with a passionate rebuttal in a Futurist journal called Artecrazia, but the government forced the publication to close.

By the 1940s, Marinetti had ceased his vehement attacks on pasta, Mussolini had withdrawn his support for Futurism, and the world had far bigger concerns than the lethargy brought on by linguini. If Marinetti ever considered reviving his anti-pasta crusade post-war, he never had the chance—he passed away from a heart attack in December 1944, just months before both Mussolini and Hitler died in April of the following year.