Making Salami, Producing Bergamo: The Transformation of Value

Abstract

Recently, in Italy and other European countries, certain foods have become markers of cultural continuity and economic possibility as various actors negotiate the value of these products. Using the concepts of recontextualization and tournaments of value, this article considers the production of material and symbolic value as it is expressed through the ongoing commoditization and potential transformation of the type of salami made in Bergamo, a town and province in Northern Italy. It focuses on various regimes of value to clarify competing visions of how production, consumption, and modernization are connected, and illuminates not only the process of how a local delicacy gets elevated to the status of gourmet product, but also how authenticity and prestige, which often seem to go hand in hand, become paired.