Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

The ‘historic’ national dishes which turn out to be artful PR exercises

Japan’s ramen ‘tradition’ was created in 1958 to use up surplus imported flour, while Pizza Margherita’s specious royal connection helped boost Naples’s tourist trade

A factory in Japan in the 1960s producing Chikin Ramen, invented by Momofuku Ando to use up surplus flour imported from the US. [Getty Images]
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  • National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History and the Meaning of Home

    Anya von Bremzen

    Pushkin ONE, pp. 352, £22

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