Economy - published on 28 June 2023
Source: Coldiretti Treviso press Office
Think of traditional Treviso recipes turned into canned proposals or with fake ingredients. How would that look to you? Coldiretti Treviso denounces that in the world as many as 6 out of 10 made in Italy recipes are fake, and that Italian cuisine must become a heritage of humanity. From spaghetti with meatballs in a tin can to rigatoni with chicken and pesto, 6 out of 10 Italians (60%) travelling abroad for work or on holiday have come across at least once dishes and recipes that are unreliable and fake Made in Italy specialities.
This is what emerges from the Coldiretti/Notosondaggi analysis in reference to the protest by the patriots of Italian cuisine, from pasta activists to some restaurateurs, against the distortion of typical Italian dishes.
And examples of this gallery of horrors at the table – Coldiretti explains – are not lacking, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world: from the cappuccino drunk while eating a plate of spaghetti with pesto to the ‘Spaghetti and Meatballs’ with meatballs, from the ‘Beefaroni’, rigatoni in a tin with meat sauce, to the ‘Zesty Robusto Italian’, a strange condiment, from ‘Chicken Fettuccine’ with chicken to ‘Rigatoni with chicken and pesto’ with chicken and pesto, from vegetarian Parmesan to Bologna with pork and beef, without forgetting – continues Coldiretti – pizza with pineapple or lasagne served with ricotta cheese.
It is no coincidence – Coldiretti emphasises – that the most popular recipe in the USA is ‘macaroni and cheese’ and is made by cooking pasta with a cheese-based sauce, very often US-made cheddar. Not to mention the carbonara that in the States they prepare with bacon instead of lard and cream or yoghurt to give consistency or pesto that is used as a sauce to use on everything from croutons to bread to chicken. There are also – Coldiretti points out – variants of popular traditional recipes such as bruschetta, which in the USA has been transformed into garlic bread with bread stuffed with pieces of garlic or drowned in garlic-flavoured butter. And while in Italy the inevitable condiment is extra virgin olive oil, abroad soya oil is often used.
A flexibility that affects even the simplest dishes of the tricolour tradition such as the caprese, with the American version using locally produced mozzarella, very different from the Italian one and not only in shape. “The lack of clarity on Made in Italy recipes provides fertile ground for the proliferation of false Italian food products that have reached the astronomical figure of 120 billion euros worldwide, and this is also why it is important to clarify Italian cuisine in the world with recognition as a Unesco heritage site,” Coldiretti president Ettore Prandini underlined that “the cultural value is added to the economic and employment value for the country’. The candidature of the practice of Italian cuisine for inscription in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity,” Coldiretti recalls, “comes after the approval by the government of the Bill on ‘Organic provisions for the valorisation, promotion and protection of Made in Italy, which provides for the establishment of a body for the certification of quality in favour of Italian catering abroad, with as many as 87% of Italians believing it important to verify the real origin of the dishes served.
