PrintPasta Strike in Italy
Italian consumers associations are asking their countrymen to boycott pasta today in a largely symbolic effort to draw attention to the rising costs of noodles.
As is the case with most of these food-price stories these days, biofuel production is being blamed for the high cost of durum wheat, more of which is being diverted into ethanol-making.
Says the BBC: "Pasta is a national dish in Italy, with each Italian eating on average 28 kg (62 lb) of pasta every year."
And perhaps the most apt analogy was the one I just heard on BBC World Service radio: "An Italian without pasta is like an American without hamburgers."
Photograph from iStockphoto.com
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6 Comments:
This is an issue that I've been concerned about here in the USA. As more demand is encouraged for bio-fuels, that's sure to raise prices for grains and corn here. While that's swell for the farmers (more likely Big Agro), it doesn't help the consumer. There should be more emphasis on going electric and less on the french fry car and biodiesel. (And petroleum is better used for plastics rather than burning fuel).
Stushi at 12:36PM on 09/13/07
I'm concerned about the hamburger comment. I had two, on separate visits, at the Billy Goat and another at a cookout. That's three for the year. Am I un-American?
jayfallon at 1:10PM on 09/13/07
jayfallon: I think the comment the radio commentator made was tongue in cheek. Like it or not, the hamburger is one of those iconic American dishes that seems to symbolize our cuisine abroad. That you don't eat one every day doesn't make you un-American, of course.
Adam Kuban at 2:04PM on 09/13/07
I forgot to insert the irony emoticon, ؟, in my comment, but thanks for clearing that up.
I guess I was just musing on cultural identification and the way gastronomy plays into one's view of self and others. Having lived in Europe for a decade, I still don't know any moonlighting flamenco dancers who eat tapas before each (daily) bullfight, but if there's one thing I find annoying it's lazy journalism. Couple that with cultural generalizations and I'm bound to have an aneurysm.
jayfallon at 3:22PM on 09/13/07
While rising food prices are a grave concern, especially to the poor, going on "strike" is silly and shows a lack of economic understanding.
It is not as if Barilla et al. are just raising their prices to screw people. They are raising their prices because their costs are going up. They can not simply cut their costs because people are on strike.
We are all going to regret all this biofuel nonsense, when it turns out that "global warming" was as much of a threat as "global cooling" of the '60s or the "population bomb" on the 70s.
SAMiller at 4:54PM on 09/13/07
I know I eat far more pasta than hamburgers. At my house we eat hamburgers only in the summer grilling season. In the winter grilling season (me out in the snow in a winter coat) its only cuts of meat or kebobs.
I also know that the Brits eat a lot of pasta (pronounced pas-tuh) they are infatuated with it. The hamburger comment is something I am used to. Americans are stereotyped quite often around the world.
As for pasta (pronounced pah-stuh) to me it is like air, I need it. If the price goes up as it has for decades, I am paying for it.
JerzeeTomato at 2:14AM on 09/14/07