Italy, the land of pasta, pizza ... and hamburgers

ROME - Italy's Agriculture Minister defended his sponsorship of McDonald's new all-Italian burger yesterday amid criticism that he is selling out to a multinational corporation and sacrificing Italy's culinary reputation in the process.

Minister Luca Zaia has argued that McDonald's new McItaly burger - using all Italian beef, Asiago cheese and artichoke spread - will pump €3.5 million ($7 million) more a month into the pockets of Italian farmers grappling with tough economic times.

But for a country that gave birth to the Slow Food movement a quarter-century ago and prides itself on its varied, delicious and healthy cuisine, Zaia's enthusiastic support of McDonald's has been hard to swallow.

It didn't help that Zaia and McDonald's executives launched the new burger last month at the McDonald's flagship restaurant in Rome's historic centre near the Spanish Steps.

The opening of those Golden Arches in 1986 inspired a relatively unknown Turin foodie, Carlo Petrini, to launch what became Slow Food - the international movement that embraces local, organic food and home cooking over fast food and the industrialised food chain.

In La Repubblica recently, Petrini challenged Zaia and McDonald's to back up their claims of helping farmers with a kilo-by-kilo accounting of how much farmers are getting out of the deal.

And he chafed at Zaia's suggestion the all-Italian menu would "globalise the identity of Italian agriculture".

"Taste, like identity, has value only when there are differences," Petrini wrote.

The opposition Democratic Party has also slammed Zaia's use of an official government seal of approval for the new burger. On the McItaly's promotional material is a seal saying "Under the patronage of" the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

"I think it's legitimate to ask if Minister Zaia is working for Italy or McDonald's," Nicodemo Oliverio, the top Democratic Party legislator in the lower Chamber of Deputies' agriculture commission, quipped yesterday.

He said giving McDonald's such a designation creates a disparity with Italian food companies that may require Italy's antitrust authority to intervene.

Zaia shot back saying the Government had long been in partnership with McDonald's to promote other "Made in Italy" products such as Parmesan cheese and smoked beef.

Zaia has defended his partnership with McDonald's as an important new market for Italy's farmers and a way to reach young Italians who make up the bulk of McDonald's customers.

- AP