Spaghetti and Guns: Food in Hollywood Mafia Movies

It is a fact that “(f)ood is one of the hubs around which all cultures, and all social life in general, revolve” (Torresi 2004: 229). The importance of food for Italians is particularly evident, as food is and has always been an emblem of Italian culture. For Italian immigrants in the United States food continued to be an essential factor of identity, as is witnessed by several studies (Cauti 1998; Cinotto 2013; Tamburri 2003; Torresi 2004). Therefore, it is not surprising that this is one of the elements that have been selected in order to convey the origins of Italian American characters in Hollywood cinema, as “food and foodways are one of the most powerful means of ethnic characterization”, as pointed out by Bollettieri Bosinelli et al. (2005: 419). Mafia movies are no exception, as most Italian American mobsters are usually presented as competent cooks. This might seem to be in contrast with the image of the mafia man, and with the image of the Italian man in general, who is usually portrayed as a strong and bold man that traditionally delegates all family chores (including cooking) to his wife. In spite of this, food and cooking definitely represent a constant element in mafia movies, as confirmed by De Stefano (2006: 218): “Every mafia movie fan knows that food, its preparation and consumption in massive quantities, is a convention of the genre”. It is not a case that food is extremely important also for Sicilian Mafiosi, and surely this element of fictional characterization derives from its context of origin. This paper will show how Hollywood cinema has selected the food element in order to contribute to the construction of the identity of Italian American mobsters in an immediate and easily recognizable way. The recurrence of the element in films throughout the years has reinforced this sign of characterization, making it more and more powerful, so that food has become an ever present and inevitable feature in this genre.