The Balla degli Spaghetti alla Bolognese is Born
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The initiative takes life from a group of passionate people who include supporters of bolognesità, or the 'essence of being from Bologna, including local VIP of science, culture and entertainment such as Giorgio Celli, Rolando Dondarini, Raoul Grassilli and Giorgio Comaschi; as well as representatives of the publishing industry (Giulio Biasion), wine and food experts (Umberto Faedi), organizers (Franco Mioni), sommeliers (Neria Rondelli), cultural directors (Vittorio Spampinato) and experts of marketing (Piero Valdiserra).
- Utilizes a wide and far-reaching definition, which ranges from local dialect to national slang.
- Utilizes a definition which is willingly ambiguous, taking advantage of all the possible play-on-words, verbal jokes which such ambiguity allows.
- Avoids the use of tired definitions to name a work group (words such as confraternity, consortium, association).
- Uses a word which has undeniable ironic and self-mocking values: this is the first worldwide promotion and marketing of a fake traditional recipe.
- Uses a funny word: both in dialect and slang the word "balla" begs a smile.
In Bologna, the word bâla in local dialect means "group of friends, gang, company". The university "Balla" (fraternity), derives from this word. In Italian slang, the word "balla" stands for lie, falsehood, untruth, whopper, poppycock, excuse, fairy tale, fake.
The 'Balla degli Spaghetti alla Bolognese' plays on the ambiguity – better still, on the multiplicity of meanings – of the key word. It references a non-existent, fake, typical recipe such as the spaghetti Bolognese, and in this case it takes its definition mostly from the national lexicon, meaning lie, untruth, fake, and such.
During the presentation, Giorgio Celli is unscrupulous: "I want to be the Savonarola of the Bolognese cuisine, I refuse this disgrace most absolutely, and let's burn at the stake those who invalidate the holy ness of the cuisine with such a blasphemy." But then he added: "Let's spread the tale that in an ancient manuscript, maybe maybe one of the Dead Sea scrolls, a recipe of spaghetti bolognese was found, and make it our precedent."
Spaghetti Bolognese
The idea is to take "a negative myth", the spaghetti bolognese, and turn it into a positive representation of bolognesità, almost as if it was a falso d'autore. [PLEASE NOTE: Falso d'autore defines counterfeit painting made by famous counterfeiters, which have thus acquired a value of their own.]
Set aside the useless complaint about the erroneous use of the name in many restaurants worldwide, especially in big metropolises. This project developed in order to take advantage of the widespread misnomer. Because spaghetti bolognese is so well known and appreciated worldwide, it made marketing sense to 'use it' to promote the city [Bologna], which has long been 'asleep', or else closed inward. The 'Balla degli Spaghetti alla Bolognese' will take advantage of the infamous dish name to reintroduce the overall image of Bologna, from culture to art and gastronomy, starting precisely from the ragù (the Bolognese sauce), which is one of the historic pillars of this cuisine.
A recent opinion poll showed that the favorite entree among the Britons is spaghetti bolognaise, so much so that they eat up an incredible 670 million servings per year. The average English citizen eats spaghetti bolognaise at least twice a week and, in his whole life, gulps down 2,960 servings (download the March 20, 2007 Corriere della Sera article -- PDF file, 80Kb, Italian only).
The Balla degli Spaghetti alla Bolognese will organize events, cooking courses, and printed materials about how the story and history of this ragù have been handed down through the centuries, and how to pair it with the fresh egg pasta [tagliatelle]. This way, it wont take long until, from Rio de Janeiro to Peking or Stockholm, one can enjoy a pasta made as it should be done, seasoned with a well cooked ragù.
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