Politiche della cucina: una prospettiva semiotica

Abstract

The title of the famous 2003 film by Tassos Boulmetis uses a hyponym in Italian (A touch of ginger), as it happens in Spanish (Un toque de canela). In English it was preferred to use a hypernym (A Touch of Spices). In Portuguese (O tempero da vida) the theme of spices disappears but the idea of essentiality remains, as a gustatory metaphor (salt is taste by definition), of the detail that makes the difference. The original Greek reads Πολìτικη Κουζìνα, an expression with a double semantic value, given that we can translate it either as The kitchen of the city (understood as Istanbul, the urban center that invests the heart of the story) or, better, as Political kitchen. This plethora of titles paves the way for multiple interpretative tracks.