When Matthew Fort, Guardian food writer and lifelong lover of all things Italian, heard that the country's agriculture minister had endorsedMcDonald's new McItaly burger, his gorge began to rise.
So incensed was Fort by Luca Zaia's comments about how the burgers would impart "an imprint of Italian flavours to our youngsters" that he wrote an irate column on the Guardian's Word of Mouth food blogdecrying what he termed a "monstrous act of national betrayal".
His disdain for Silvio Berlusconi's "morally bankrupt" government – "the president of the council cavorting with young women, the allegations of shady connections, slippery financial arrangements, dubious political allegiances, and all-round dodgy dealings" – was matched only by his contempt for the McItaly – "a devilish concoction of artichoke spread, Asiago cheese and lettuce".
Fort's fury did not go unnoticed.
Before long, Zaia himself responded with an equally heartfelt and colourful missive to the Guardian, in which he accused Fort and the paper of, among other things, "baying at the moon"; being in thrall to Stalinist ideology and "sterile moral orthodoxy", and of haunting the organic aisles of supermarkets "with heavy wallets and light consciences".
Fort's opinions, he suggested, were outdated. Nor had he taken into account the fact that the McItaly was made from products with a protected designation of origin.
"With regret," wrote Zaia, "we are forced to deliver bad news to this kind of left: Stalin is dead. And we can safely bet he never set foot in a McDonald's."
He went on: "On the contrary, this is something that thousands of European youngsters do every day. At the same time, thousands of European farmers are facing the consequences of the worst economic crisis since '29. McItaly will bring to the Italian farmers €3,448,000 of additional income a month. It will also enable McDonald's clients to eat a healthy burger made with … Made in Italy products."
Warming to his theme, the minister concluded: "We hope this will convince them to forget about junk food and choose a healthier and better quality food. We are sure it will work. Then, we will become modern Jesuits and try to 'convert the infidels' of the left, who have never dirtied their hands by working in the fields."
Fort took his depiction as a non-believing, lunatic vestige of totalitarianism in good part.
"I haven't been so flattered for years," he said, pointing out that his original article had prompted Carlo Petrini, the president of the Slow Food movement, to write a similarly despairing piece for La Repubblica.
"Clearly this has had international repercussions," said Fort, whose last book – about Sicily, its people and its food – won the Premio Sicilia Madre Mediterranea, a prize handed out by the Sicilian department of agriculture to honour those who celebrate and support the island's food and traditions.
"It's a good knockabout," said the writer, "but I think Zaia rather misses the point and that his attack on pinkoes, fellow travellers and old Stalinists is a distraction from the main issue: the failure of the government to look after Italy's unique legacy of artisanal produce."
It was, he said, "a depressing reflection of the gap that exists between Italian political life and the lives of Italian citizens".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/01/mcitaly-burger-matthew-fort-luca-zaia
