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January 27, 2009
Culinary Racism or Really Strict Historical Zoning?
The City of Lucca (my pictures from last year here) is banning foreign food (including American fast food!). Is this culinary racism, as Bloomberg reports? An extreme example of historical preservation zoning? Tuscan bigotry on the march? (As someone whose interest in Italy is profoundly un-Florentine, I reach for the last almost too readily - rolling my eyes and sighing "Tuscany" in a tone of voice very different from all those people who want to live in Chiantishire.)
Lucca's municipal council ruled yesterday that "with a view to safeguarding culinary traditions and the authenticity of structure, architecture, culture and history, establishments whose activities can be tracked to different ethnicities won't be allowed to operate." Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Liberty party controls the town council.The architects of the ban say it applies to fast-food outlets, which includes not just kebab stalls, but also pizza stands, and the aim is to highlight the local cuisine based on beans, rabbit and salt cod. A spokeswoman confirmed the new rule -- an update to a 2000 ordinance -- and said it applies only to the area within the town's fortified medieval walls inhabited by 8,000 residents.
Here's a google view of the city - the walls are obvious.
It sounds to me like slow food meets historical preservation - two fundamentalisms whose union may not be all that helpful! But if you want a kebab in Lucca, you'll have to stop between the train station and the old walls. I recommend the trip if you're in Pisa or Florence. Here are my posts from last year about the city.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at January 27, 2009 8:37 AM
Comments
Salt cod?
I generally try to be fairly open, culinarily speaking, and it may be much better than it sounds, but...salt cod?
I say, they're welcome to it.
.....Well, I honestly don't know how they eat it in Lucca (I ate other things), but salt cod (soaked many times to desalt it) is used to make baccalà alla Romana, little fried fillets of cod. Yummy! --MCT
Posted by: Bruce at January 27, 2009 3:47 PM