Italy is an amazing place!
I recently watched a talk by Oscar Farinetti, the founder of Eataly.
Eataly is probably the biggest Italian marketplace worldwide: one that comprises a variety of restaurants, food and beverage counters, bakery and retail items.
The story that Farinetti shares in his talk inspired me to write this blog post about it. I am going to mix and blend information coming from his speech with my personal experience and perspective: I hope you enjoy the reading.
Planet Earth
We should all remember from our school days that Planet Earth is about 6 billion years old. With every beginning comes an end so who knows how much it will be able to survive: we should enjoy it until it lasts.
Mankind – us – is much younger. We were born about 150 million years ago, kind of ‘yesterday’: we still have a long way to go and plenty of things to invent.
Living on this Earth, there are about 7.7 billion people right now.
This number is incredible: there are no records of so many human beings populating the Earth at any point in time in the past. I remember watching Jerry Maguire a couple of decades ago (the film was released in 1996!) and at the start of the movie Jerry saying that “when he was a kid, the world population was about 3 billion”. That was just over 20 years ago.
We are growing fast.
We can roughly split all the various ethnicities populating the world in this way: 45% yellow, 20% white, 20% brown, 15% black.
We, the humans of the world, are organised in 194 states.
We, the humans of the world, speak 114 macro-languages (languages which are completely different one another) and thousands of dialects.
We, the humans of the world, practice 14 macro-religions, so different amongst each other that often generate conflicts.
Out of the 194 states on Earth, over 40 of them are in war: this means that 2 billion people in the world practically live in a war zone.
The well known Pareto law applies here as well: 80% of 7.7 billion live in poor conditions and 20% of world population owns 80% of the GDP.
Bear in mind: as harsh as they may look, these numbers improve every year that goes by, therefore we can confidently say that we live in the best possible moment in history for humanity. I encourage you to do some research if you don’t believe my words (after all, I’m only here to show you how to cook proper Italian food!) and I suggest you explore a couple of books on the topics: Factfulness (by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund) and The Rational Optimist (by Matt Ridley).
Naturally, when thinking about some of the statistics I have shared with you so far, we should all realise there is so much room for improvement that if you are reading this post you are unbelievably lucky.
You are lucky to be born where you were born and live where you are living.
When reflecting on such an undeserved luck, I hope we all feel the need “to seek forgiveness for our luck”. Probably one of the most thoughtful ways of doing so, is to genuinely commit towards creating a better world.
Some are even luckier than others
Right in the middle of the Earth we can find Italy, a small place that occupies ~0.5% of the global land surface where ~0.83% of the world population live.
Italy is the only peninsula in the world spreading from North to South on a perfect latitude, completely surrounded by what we define a good sea. This is the only place in the world with this type of geographical distribution.
Why is it so special? It so happens that the good winds of the Italian seas meet the good winds and the fresh breeze of the Italian mountains and hills: a situation which is truly unique in the entire world.
Italy is an amazing place!
Thanks to this one-of-a-kind geographical structure, great things happen in Italy:
- In Pra, near Genua, Italians grow the best basil in the world (perhaps look at my Special Pesto recipe if you love basil!);
- In Friuli Venezia Giulia, you’ll find Prosciutto San Daniele, ‘son’ of the Italian wind ‘bora’ and the Dolomites;
- Parma ham, ‘son’ of the Apuan Alps and the mediterranean winds, is eaten with pleasure all over the world;
- The best pasta in the world is known to be made near Gragnano, not far from Naples, where the fresh breeze from Castellamare di Stabia meets Vesuvio’s breeze, creating a unique microclimate (the pasta I used in this videorecipe is “made in Gragnano”!);
- It so happens that in the Abruzzo region the best saffron in the world can be found;
- In my region, Puglia, the exposure to the Ionian sea and the Adriatic sea creates the perfect conditions to grow the tastiest oregano on Earth;
- In Calabria, the local licorice is the daughter of the Ionic sea and the Apuan Alps;
- Think about the myrthle in Sardinia, the Pachino tomatoes in Sicily, the sausages from Basilicata…
… and I could go on for days… because Italy actually is an amazing place.
It so happens that in Italy (remember: just the 0.5% of the global land surface!) there are 7,000 edible plant species. The second region in the world is Brazil with 3,300. Any Italian region has more plant species than any other country in Europe!
It so happens that in Italy there are 58,000 animal species: 42,000 of air and land, 10,500 of salt water, 5,500 of freshwater. The second region in the world is China, a country that spreads over 6% of the Earth surface, with 20,000 species (sorry China…).
It so happens that in Italy we have 1,200 local vineyards. The second place is taken by France with 222.
It so happens that in Italy we grow 533 olive species. Spain is sitting in the second position with 70.
In Italy you can find 140 wheat crop varieties. USA owns the second place with 6.
This beauty is called biodiversity: Italy is the country with the biggest biodiversity in the world. What an amazing place!
And the same biodiversity that we can find in the food and wine sectors is also the starting point for human biodiversity. Italy is home to the biggest number of ethnic groups in the world.
Italy has a wonderful history that dates back 40,000 years ago: Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens both begun their journey in Africa, chose to go on different paths, never met… except in Italy. That was the starting point of our wonderful human biodiversity history.
That is the reason why, thousands of years later, Italy was home of the biggest empire in the world, the first great Empire, leader of both social and political innovations at the time.
That is also the reason why, some 1500 years later, Renaissance begun in Italy.
It is also the reason why Italy owns 70% of the physical heritage of the world: yes, 70% of the physical heritage of the world can be found in the 0.5% of the global land surface…
For myself therefore, I feel that after getting forgiveness for the luck to be born in the 20% of the world that owns 80% wealth, I’ll also need to seek forgiveness for the luck to be born in Italy.
And I’ll never forget about it. Because Italy truly is an amazing place.
© Italian Food Boss