You an hartly have missed this, McDonalds Italy is introducing some special hamburgers in Italy.
Their speciality lies in the fact that they are made using Italian products. Products used among others are pancetta, olive oil and artichoke puree. Is it a big deal? Well one thing that struck me is that the introduction took place in the branch at the Spanish Steps. If I’m not mistaking that is the same branch that spurred mr. Petrini and friends to start the slowfood movement. I don’t believe this stunt is a bad thing. You can already get pretty bad food in Italy and McDonalds will not make it any worse.
After all it is people who choose what they eat and if they want burgers they’ll eat burgers. The field of food is always on the move and moving is a good thing. Think of it before the 18th century hardly any Italian ate members of the Solanaceae family which include tomatoes, peppers and aubergines and the tomatoes probably where yellow as it was called pomi d’oro. Olive trees are not indigenous nor are the lovely pine trees. The Pizza Margherita was introduced a mere hunderd something years ago. And the list goes on. Besides that there aren’t that many McDonalds in Italy (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/foo_mcd_res-food-mcdonalds-restaurants) and most Italians wouldn’t be found dead in it.
I bet McDonalds will be exporting this one all over the world. They have done a similar thing before with the Parmigiano Reggiano hamburger which was originally introduced in Italy and now sells in France and Switzerland as well. So good for big agri in Italy overall and rest assured here in Umbria there are lots of places where you can get an Italian food fix.
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