Made in Italy is a label that still attracts attention, and buyers. Italy has been very protective of its country’s indigenous food products, and we’re not talking just wine here.
A recent article
on the front page of a daily Rome newspaper, Il Messaggero, brought this
point home to us as it proclaimed that the authenticity of orecchiette, the “little
ear” pasta form, was at risk. Orecchiette, as we learned, should be a product
of Puglia. Moreover, the “nonne della pasta” (“pasta grandmothers”) of the region are accused of
making it only partly by hand—"ma loro negano”—“they deny it.”
In Bari,
according to the Messaggero article, which was based on a UK Guardian
article, there’s been a “blitz” of authorities going after the pasta makers. I
like the Guardian headline: “Barricades in Bari: why the city’s ‘pasta
grannies’ are under scrutiny. Sellers of fresh orecchiette in southern Italy
are fighting back after being accused of tricking tourists with bought wares.”
The blitz,
which started in January and has continued, includes the local prosecutor, the
local police, the national Guardia di Finanza (tax police), and the Carabinieri
(national police force). Says the Guardian, “Authorities said the most
conspicuous evidence was piles of cardboard boxes for factory-made pasta found
dumped in wheelie bins on the outskirts of the old town.”
The full
article on the inside of Il Messaggero started with a typical—and enticing—yellow
journalism approach:
“Not
everything that ends up on your plate is truly Italian. From Parmigiano Dop*
that hides foreign milk, to wine labeled from Tuscany but produced elsewhere to
mozzarella ‘made by hand: sold as ‘artigianale’: the risk of being cheated is around
every corner, and it doesn’t hit just tourists. Olives, salami, dried tomatoes,
fresh pasta. The “made in Italy” label at times is corrupted by deceptive brand
labelling, in stores in the center of Rome that are tourist traps, and on packages
both in windows and on tables. And the case of the ‘orecchiette wars’ in the
oldtown of Bari [in Puglia] is just one vivid example.”
The full newspaper
page, which had an overall headline of “Add Doubt to the Table,” also featured wine
from Pantelleria (an Italian island about halfway between Sicily and Tunisia)
that was in fact made in Germany. And a third piece on adulteration of cheese
products—Mozzarella and scamorza in Barletta (also in Puglia)—another blitz by Carabinieri,
in this case specifically by their Nas division. We were unaware of this
division of the national police force (we knew about their division that finds
stolen art, and have appreciated and written about it). Nas, or Nucleo Antisofisticazioni
Sanità, is the department of the Carabinieri responsible for controls of
foodstuff, drinks, medicine etc. from adulteration, impurities, and fraudulent
labelling. We couldn’t tell whether the Nas division of the Carabinieri was
involved in the orecchiette wars, but they were involved in this cheese product
adulteration.
It seems the cautionary tale is to watch what you eat, or don’t believe everything you’re told. It would be hard for the Italian authorities to keep up with the counterfeit products, we think. That won’t stop us from eating what we like here in Rome. Though maybe we’ll pay more attention to the recommendations of food experts like Katie Parla. Unfortunately, learning about these scams, while entertaining, adds a bit of cynicism to the table.
Dianne
*”DOP stands
for Denominazione di Origine Protetta (literally “Protected Designation of
Origin”). As the the name suggests, this certification ensures that products
are locally grown and packaged.” Walks in Italy, a tour provider with a rich
website, has a good piece on Dop here.
(Italians tend not to use upper case for all the letters in their acronyms.)
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