They may look Italian but they're not!

It may look like it's made in Italy but don't count on it. The Italian organization of farmers, the Coldiretti, has opened a museum where counterfeit Italian foods are on show. And according to Sergio Marini, the president of that organization, Italy may lose as much as 50 billion euros a year (can that be right, I ask myself? If so, wow!)) because outside of Italy thousands of food products - Coldiretti says one out of four supposedly Italian products is a fake - are sold with names or packaging that deliberately induce the buyer to think he is buying an Italian product.

The biggest culprits are the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In the U.S., Coldiretti says, only two percent of the cheeses sold as Italian actually are from il Bel Paese. But there seems to be no limit to human invention. Thus, there is corn meal flour labelled "palenta" instead of polenta that is sold in Eastern Europe; "pecorino" cheese sold in China with a picture of a cow on the package (real pecorino is made from sheep's milk); the name Barbera (a well-known Italian red wine), is used for a white wine sold elsewhere in Europe. Spaghetti sold - and made - in Egypt is sold in a green, white and red bag, mimicking the colors of the Italian flag, the Sorrento Mozzarella sold in the US is made somewhere in the United States, and the Parmesan or Parmesan sold in the U.S. or Canada is not real parmigiano. If you want to read more about this you can do so in October 18th's Corriere della Sera or on  the Italian news agency ADN Kronos.