Bologna / Baloney
Inviato: 28/09/2011, 16:04
Articolo apparso poche settimane fa sul Guardian che mi ha segnalato una mia amica inglese.
Challenged by Andrew Neil last week to say whether he was about to head
to the House of Lords, Charles Kennedy dismissed the rumour. It was, he
said, "a load of baloney". Which may, or perhaps may not, be that. But
it is certainly a tribute to baloney and, by extension, to the Italian
city of Bologna, of which the word baloney is a corruption, that Mr
Kennedy found the expression so readily to hand in making his denial.
Baloney reached Britain by way of America, where it is a form of
sausage similar to the mortadella which originally came from Bologna
itself. But it is one of several associations that have ensured Bologna
a uniquely disproportionate influence in western language and culture.
Bologna is a splendid city, not as much visited as it should be by the
many who rush past it each year, en route to Tuscany and the Adriatic
coast. Yet Bologna casts a soft power spell nevertheless. In postwar
Italy, Bologna was synonymous with an outstanding era of
leftwing
local government, now alas largely a memory, which brought municipal
socialists from around Europe to see how the Bolognese did it. It is
hard to think of a city more famous for its cooking than Bologna,
though ironic that the dish for which it is most celebrated abroad, the
bolognese sauce, is not known by that name in the city itself: there,
as elsewhere, Italians know it as ragu. In Italian brothels, la
bolognesa was an oral specialist too, though of a different kind. But
it is food that has ensured Bologna's reputation will never be a load
of baloney.
Challenged by Andrew Neil last week to say whether he was about to head
to the House of Lords, Charles Kennedy dismissed the rumour. It was, he
said, "a load of baloney". Which may, or perhaps may not, be that. But
it is certainly a tribute to baloney and, by extension, to the Italian
city of Bologna, of which the word baloney is a corruption, that Mr
Kennedy found the expression so readily to hand in making his denial.
Baloney reached Britain by way of America, where it is a form of
sausage similar to the mortadella which originally came from Bologna
itself. But it is one of several associations that have ensured Bologna
a uniquely disproportionate influence in western language and culture.
Bologna is a splendid city, not as much visited as it should be by the
many who rush past it each year, en route to Tuscany and the Adriatic
coast. Yet Bologna casts a soft power spell nevertheless. In postwar
Italy, Bologna was synonymous with an outstanding era of
leftwing
local government, now alas largely a memory, which brought municipal
socialists from around Europe to see how the Bolognese did it. It is
hard to think of a city more famous for its cooking than Bologna,
though ironic that the dish for which it is most celebrated abroad, the
bolognese sauce, is not known by that name in the city itself: there,
as elsewhere, Italians know it as ragu. In Italian brothels, la
bolognesa was an oral specialist too, though of a different kind. But
it is food that has ensured Bologna's reputation will never be a load
of baloney.
