Beer consumption in Italy has been relatively flat for decades but there seems to be an uptick, if not in consumption per se, then at least in interest. We’ve reported the University of Perugia’s center for beer research, but there’s something new in the center of Perugia. The name of the new pub is “Non c’era in centro” (There wasn’t [one, i.e. a place like this] in the center). The name is as awkward as the place is interesting. It has the modern elegance of an upscale wine bar, with a bright interior and colorful ceramic tiles attached to a white wall. But this place sells beer, not wine; or rather, it focuses on beer, as wine is available but seems rather marginalized.
The pub itself is part of a building that used to house Fabbrica Birra Perugia, which operated from 1875 until the 1960s, one of the many breweries which opened in that epoch, some of which are still open: Wuhrer, Forst, Dreher, and Peroni among them. While I found the food excellent (aside from too-sweet sauerkraut), this is not a restaurant review but rather (like our recent review of the Osteria di Pinocchio) a contextualization within Italian food history. The fact that a restaurant can open which both uses beer—foreign, artisanal, and even local artisanal—as its strong point, a place which offers pretzels and a variety of hamburgers as main dishes alongside the traditional fare available anywhere shows a pretty big shift in Italian food habits. The owner of Non c’era in centro has made a bet that there are enough culinarily bold Italians to actually fill his place most nights a week. Are the hamburgers exactly like they are in a hole-in-the-wall burger joint in the States? No, they’ve been “interpreted,” but that’s natural, unless one is obsessed with what I call “philological food.” I personally find this a refreshing change to the dominant “our cuisine is the best, period” attitude that has taken root in Italy in the past twenty years (fueled by too much fawning attention from American foodies). Kudos. ZN
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Giorgio Fidenato and GMO in Italy
In April 2010 contrarian farmer Giorgio Fidenato posted a video on YouTube showing himself planting six seeds of a variety of corn called MON180, Monsanto’s YieldGuard genetically modified mais. While this GMO mais had been approved in the European Union since 1998, the lack of a clear application process for permits to use MON180 on one hand and the feet-dragging of politicians worried about public backlash for GMO approval made Fidenato’s act illegal. Ya Basta activists found the plants in August and cut down all of the corn in the field, leaving behind signs that warned of toxic contamination. Fidenato, who is an active anti-tax libertarian, vowed to continue to use GMO corn, his legal right he asserted.
It is difficult to know where to stand on this issue. Monsanto seems to be evil incarnate for the alt-food world, members of which check under their beds at night not for the boogieman but for the American agro-giant’s lawyers. The EU’s policy of a de facto ban until more is known about GMO plants also seems to be a good idea, but then (as James McWilliams points out in his excellent book Just Food), what about the known toxicity of insecticides that are sprayed on non-GMO fields? MON180 is in some ways more environmentally friendly as it needs much less pesticides: its cells contain a gene that expressed makes an insecticidal protein, Cry1Ab, spliced in from the genome of the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. The European corn borer, a mais pest, eats the GMO mais plant and the protein attaches to its gut wall, paralyzing and killing it; the protein has no binding sites for mammals and so is completely harmless. While GMO opponents often cite a now much-criticized study on GMO mais pollen killing butterflies, it seems that GMO mais fields actually have a higher biodiversity than non-GMO fields, where toxic pesticides must be sprayed.
It is not our idea to be apologists for genetically modified organisms or their oligopolistic patent owners. But it’s not a cut-and-dry issue, even in Italy. ZN