MINISTER TO REPEAT MCITALY PROMO
MINISTER TO REPEAT MCITALY PROMO
(ANSA) - Milan, February 5 - Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia's controversial endorsement of McDonald's new all-Italian hamburger in Rome last week will see an encore performance on Monday at a franchise on the outskirts of Milan.
''The McItaly is made with 100% Italian ingredients and represents a huge opportunity for Italian farmers,'' the minister said on Friday.
''That's why I've decided to follow up on my visit to the historic flagship McDonald's in Rome with a second presentation in Milan''.
Zaia's championing of the McItaly outraged Italian-food lovers both at home and abroad, who said the sandwich was an affront to the nation's centuries-old culinary tradition.
The location of its launch, at the first ever McDonald's in Italy, was also seen as a slap in the face to cuisine conservationists in Italy where the Slow Food movement began.
But the agriculture minister argued it was a way to ''promote Italian food among young people around the world''.
He said the sandwich also created a new market for Italian farmers, who stood to gross 40 million euros from McDonald's this year.
The McItaly includes five products boasting European Union quality seals: Asiago cheese from the Veneto region, cured Bresaola beef from western Lombardy, pancetta bacon from the Dolomites, onions from Calabria and artichokes from Rome, not to mention extra virgin olive oil.
McDonald's says the hamburger bun and patty are also made with 100% Italian bread and beef.
GOURMET INSISTS MCITALY ENDORSEMENT 'BETRAYAL'.
Zaia's enthusiasm for the McItaly met with a scathing editorial in The Guardian last week by British food critic Matthew Fort who called it a ''monstrous act of national betrayal''.
''We can only hope that the Italians show stiffer resolve than other countries around the world which continue to embrace McDonald's in ever more depressing ways,'' Fort concluded.
But Zaia defended the sandwich in an online response saying that the McItaly was a boon to farmers suffering from the effects of the economic downturn and gave McDonald's patrons something healthy to put between their teeth.
''We hope this will convince them to forget about junk food and choose healthier and better-quality food,'' he said.
A response to both appeared in an open letter from Slow Food Founder Carlo Petrini this week who asked McDonald's to name their producers and certify that they were paying them fair prices.
He also observed that ''the ambition of globalizing Italian products'' was an unworthy goal that risked ''homogenizing and impoverishing them until they disappear''.
''Diversity is at the heart of what makes Italian food great,'' he argued.
''In any case, multinational pizza chains shows us that making and selling something you call Italian is of no help at all in promoting genuine Italian products''.
But he said that while waiting from an answer from the company, he would suspend his judgement and give McItaly the benefit of the doubt.
Despite the outrage from gourmets and conservationists, the controversy surrounding the McItaly has done little to stem its appeal and may even have piqued the interest of curious customers.
The company reported Thursday that McItaly accounted for 15% of total sales since its unveiling, some 100,000 sandwiches, a number above and beyond its original projections. Photo: Agriculture Minister Zaia at McDonald's
