AgryCult

The Minister of Agriculture Luca Zaia and Roberto Masi, CEO McDonald’s Italia enjoy (apparently) their McItaly

In late January, McDonald’s Italy introduced in its menu the McItaly, the new sandwich “invented” (as he himself likes to say) by the Italian minister of Agriculture Luca Zaia.

This marriage between the made-in-Italy and McDonald’s, as enthusiastically claimed by Zaia, will bring a bright future for the Italian farmers, who are called to participate in the “good” globalization “good” thanks to the (very) globalized McDonald’s.

The case hit the headlines when Matthew Fort, restaurant critic for The Guardian and lover of Italian cooking, wrote a highly critical article about the McItaly, defined as a “a devilish concoction of artichoke spread, Asiago cheese and lettuce” and accused the minister of “monstrous national betrayal” and of selling off the image of the made-in-Italy for the benefit of the pockets of McDonald’s.

Zaia answered to the accusations, writing that “Stalin is dead” (but where does it come in?) and that “the operation McItaly will bring each month 3,488,000 euros of revenues in the pockets of Italian peasants “

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” (sic!).

Zaia seems convinced of what he says, so much so that he emphasize it on all occasions. Listen to this excerpt (few seconds) from the TV show “il Gastronauta” aired last Saturday on Radio24 national radio (press play):

Thus, examining the thought of Zaia, we can assume the following axioms:

1) the McItaly equals to healthy eating, and it is a sandwich an Italian grandmather would make;

2) the Italian peasants will get benefits from the McItaly operation.

Now, regarding the axiom mentioned in number 1), I leave to you every consideration, and invite you to share them in the comments below, if you like (if you read the Italian version of this page you’ll find many, already). In this regard I can only say that my grandmother never prepared anything like that

Regarding the axiom mentioned in number 2), I’ll write something about it in my next post tomorrow.

Links:

• the Guardian article
• an hilarious ”test drive” of the sandwich
• McDonald’s Introduces ‘McItaly’ Line of Burgers (blogs.abcnews.com)
• Italian minister bites back after Guardian critic slates the McItaly (guardian.co.uk)
• Italy minister defends support for McDonald’s burger (ctv.ca)