The new taste of Italy - want fries with it?

by Neil Thomas
February 12th, 2010

Speak the Culture: Italy (just published) might turn out to be a more digestible homage to Italian culture than the McItaly burger introduced to Rome by fast food giant McDonald’s last week. It’s a burger that uses Italian sourced ingredients, is square in shape and comes served with artichoke sauce, Asiago cheese or olive oil and pancetta. Launched as ‘McDonald’s speaks Italian’, it sets out to ‘promote the taste of Italy’.

Unsurprisingly, the burger has had a mixed reception. It’s the latest edible manifestation of McDonald’s attempts to ‘go native’ as they have done elsewhere – with the Croque McDo in France; the McFalafel in Egypt; the Ebi Filet-O in Japan; the McLobster in Canada; the McCurry Pan in India; and the Shogun Burger in Hong Kong. The use of Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia at the Rome launch event (that’s him in the photo above) – holding up the burger with the look of man who’s found the Holy Grail (and decided to ‘go large’ with it) – didn’t necessarily bring the kudos McDonald’s were hoping for. “We want to give an imprint of Italian flavours to our youngsters,” he enthused.

It turns out that McDonald’s has a food studio devising dishes for local markets. Maybe this is what Spain’s Ferran Adria will be doing next, having just closed his world-famous restaurant, El Bulli, for two years so that that he can delve deeper into food research – inspired perhaps to concoct molecular versions of Spanish dishes for overseas branches, possibly kicking off with a Pie-ella (with eels and mash) for Britain.