My household is hosting a theme dinner this month, and the theme we chose was “Italian peasant food” since my ancestors on one side were pretty much Italian peasants. That side of my family Americanized itself as quickly as possible (probably due to various social pressures / “The American Dream” / whatever), so I actually don’t know anything about authentic Italian culture. It’s an interesting conundrum: Italian culture is often quite present in American society, but in such a bastardized form that it actually makes understanding the true culture harder because you’re not approaching it from scratch and maybe getting to the real thing without all the signal interference.
Anyway: I was looking up some music for the event and found this collection of Italian folk songs from the Alan Lomax collection. I think it owns, and I wish I grew up with more stuff like this.
The album is called Italian Treasury, Folk Music And Song From Italy, A Sampler.