"Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong. From panettone to tiramisu, many 'classics' are actually recent inventions": thus begins the Financial Times special on Italian cuisine.
Parmesan and carbonara are also accused, in what Coldiretti defines as "a surreal attack on the symbolic dishes of Italian cuisine, precisely on the occasion of the announcement of its candidacy for intangible heritage of humanity at Unesco".
The article, notes the agricultural organization "try to trivialize the traditional national food, from carbonara to panettone, from tiramisu to Parmigiano Reggiano".
On the latter, the article reads that "before the 1960s, the wheels of Parmesan weighed only about 10 kg (compared to the heavy 40 kg wheels we know today) and were enclosed in a thick black crust. It had a it was fatter and softer than the current one" and that "its exact modern match is Wisconsin Parmesan".
A reconstruction that Coldiretti branded as "imaginative", noting that the US state of Wisconsin is "the homeland of fake Made in Italy cheeses".
Equally imaginative, continues Coldiretti, are the declarations according to which the Americans invented carbonara and the one that points to panettone and tiramisu as recent commercial products.
It is "an article inspired by an old publication by an Italian author which - notes Coldiretti - could make people smile, if it didn't hide worrying economic and employment implications. The lack of clarity on Made in Italy recipes in fact offers fertile ground for the proliferation of fake Italian food products abroad,
According to the agricultural organization, "global agro-piracy against Italy has reached a turnover of 120 billion", in a ranking in which cheeses are at the top, starting with Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano, followed by cured meats, with Parma and San Daniele hams, extra virgin olive oils, preserves such as San Marzano tomatoes and wines, from Chianti to Prosecco.