The Cycling Podcast

Ask most people to think of Italy and what’s the first image that will come to their mind? For cycling fans it could be the Giro - but, generally, throughout the world, that picture in the mind’s eye is as likely to be of food as it is, say, the national flag, the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Colosseum.  In recent years, it’s been noticeable for journalists on the race that the Giro has leaned further into the notion of Italy as a sort promised land of the finest food and wine on the planet – no longer just ‘the hardest race in the most beautiful place’, per the sales pitch, but also the one where you’ll eat the best meals.  Italian recipes are genuine, humble in origin but luxurious in taste – and also ancient. So at least we’re always told. And yet recently one professor in Italy, Alberto Grandi of the University of Parma, hit the headlines all over the world and caused outrage at home by claiming that a lot of it was lies, mythology, either a misremembering of the past or a deliberate attempt to distort