Italy bans kebabs, McDonald's food

The towns of Lucca and Milan in Italy have banned any new ethnic food shops from opening inside their cities. Other Italian cities will follow the lead and the initiative is backed by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The ban began in the town of Lucca this week, when people stopped opening new ethnic food outlets within the town area. Then the ban spread to other areas like Lombardy and its capital, Milan, which is managed by the ruling Center-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi. The anti-immigrant Northern League party has instituted these restrictions on foreign restaurants and food items to protect the local specialties. Luca Zaia, the Minister of Agriculture and a member of the Northern League from the Venato region, praised the towns’ decision to ban ethnic foods. He told Times Online that they want to safeguard their culture. He said the existing foreign restaurants can serve food as long they use local produces. He insisted that he has never eaten a “kebab”, and he also refuses to eat pineapple because it is a foreign produce. He prefers the local Venato dishes. Davide Boni, a councilor in Milan for the Northern League who also favors the ethnic food ban, has another pet peeve: he doesn’t like mosques being built in their towns. He doesn’t want kebab owners working long hours either, because he says it offers unfair competition to the local Italian restaurants. But not every one endorses the ban, the daily newspaper “La Stampa” calls it a new Lombard Crusade against the Saracens and calls the ban “a culinary ethnic cleansing”. Vittoria Castellani, a celebrity chef concurs. He told Times:

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.

Even the famous Italian dishes were once imported. The San Marzano tomato, a staple ingredient of Italian pasta sauces, was originally a gift from Peru to the Kingdom of Naples in the 18th century. Without tomatos, there will be no pasta. The famous spaghetti was supposedly imported from China by the famous explorer Marco Polo. And also the oranges and lemons came from the Arab world. Castellani is appalled by the growing intolerance and xenophobia in Italy. But the Lucca residents are firm and they don’t call it racist. Massimo Di Grazia, the Lucca spokesman said the ban was to improve the image of the city and protect the local Tuscan products. He said they target McDonald’s as much as they do kebab food places. There is confusion, however. Di Grazia doesn’t mind French restaurants and is not aware that many of the Sicilian foods were influenced by Arab cooking.