Italy Says, No More Muslim Food?
November 23, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Politics
Kebab Anyone?
ITALY MOVES TO PROTECT CITIZENS FROM MUSLIM FOODS
No Sheep Eyes in the Spaghetti
No more goat meat on a stick!
by Michael Travis
That’s the word from Italy as“foreign” kebab is being kicked out of Italian cities, compliments of the center-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.
The drive to halt Italians from eating hala foods has been described by the Left and leading chefs as “gastronomic racism.”
The ban began in the town of Lucca this week, where the council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the ancient city walls. This move was aimed at the Muslim food stands that had cropped up throughout the countryside.
The crackdown on falafel and moon cakes has spread to Lombardy and its regional capital, Milan, which is also run by the centre Right. The anti-immigrant Northern League party brought in the restrictions “to protect local specialties from the growing popularity of ethnic cuisines”.
Hungry?
Luca Zaia, the Minister of Agriculture and a member of the Northern League from the Veneto region, applauded the authorities in Lucca and Milan for cracking down on non-Italian food. “We stand for tradition and the safeguarding of our culture,” he said.
Mr Zaia said that those ethnic restaurants allowed to operate “whether they serve kebabs, sushi or Chinese food” should “stop importing container loads of meat and fish from who knows where” and use only Italian ingredients.
Asked if he had ever eaten a kebab, Mr Zaia said: “No – and I defy anyone to prove the contrary. I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto. I even refuse to eat pineapple.”
Mehmet Karatut, who owns one of four kebab shops in Lucca, said that he used Italian meat only.
Davide Boni, a councillor in Milan for the Northern League, which also opposes the building of mosques in Italian cities, said that kebab shop owners were prepared to work long hours, which was unfair competition.
“This is a new Lombard Crusade against the Saracens,” La Stampa, the daily newspaper, said. The centre-left opposition in Lucca said that the campaign was discrimination and amounted to “culinary ethnic cleansing”.
Vittorio Castellani, a celebrity chef, said: “There is no dish on Earth that does not come from mixing techniques, products and tastes from cultures that have met and mingled over time.”
He said that many dishes thought of as Italian were, in fact, imported. The San Marzano tomato, a staple ingredient of Italian pasta sauces, was a gift from Peru to the Kingdom of Naples in the 18th century. Even spaghetti, it is thought, was brought back from China by Marco Polo, and oranges and lemons came from the Arab world.
Mr Castellani said that the ban reflected growing intolerance and xenophobia in Italy. It was also a blow to immigrants who make a living by selling ethnic food, which is popular because of its low cost. There are 668 ethnic restaurants in Milan, a rise of nearly 30 per cent in one year.
The centre Right won national elections in April last year partly because of alarm about crime and immigration. This week there was a series of attacks on immigrants in bars and shops after the arrest of six Romanians accused of gang-raping an Italian girl in the Rome suburb of Guidonia.
Filippo Candelise, a Lucca councillor, said: “To accuse us of racism is outrageous. All we are doing is protecting the culinary patrimony of the town.”
Massimo Di Grazia, the city spokesman, said that the ban was intended to improve the image of the city and to protect Tuscan products. “It targets McDonald’s as much as kebab restaurants,” he added.
There is confusion, however, over what is meant by ethnic. Mr Di Grazia said that French restaurants would be allowed. He was unsure, though, about Sicilian cuisine. It is influenced by Arab cooking.
Related Reading:
- England revisited…
- Muslim Man Bites off Rabbi’s Finger
- Terrorists Treated Like Royality
- Islamic Pedophilia Now Rampant in the Netherlands
- Another Hero Takes on Islam; Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
- United Kingdom to Ban US Papers?
- England be Careful!
Well done Italy!
It is not ‘xenophobic’ to refuse to eat a product containing meat for which the animal suffers a cruel slaughtering technique. If they stun the animals before cutting the neck in the ritual manner, well that would be acceptable but they don’t.
In the UK Halal meat has been sneaking into products that were once non-halal, like Kentucky Chicken and other food chains, and worse still school meals. It is no more than gastronomical jihad!