September 8, 2011 David v. McDonald's

[CaliforniaMama]

Italy, 2011




Someone in Italy seriously does not like McDonald's.

Perhaps in response to the McItaly menu (introduced January, 2010)?

What's to protest? They have kiwi-on-a-stick and two new burgers made with 100 percent made-in-Italy meat. One has artichoke spread, Asiago cheese, and lettuce. The other has Italian olive oil, onion, and smoked pancetta.

How about some nuggets stuffed with spinach and Parmesan cheese? For dessert there are carrot and peach cakes, dusted with powdered sugar, and torta della nonna, a Tuscan cheese tart, and torta caprese, a chocolate and nut cake that was born on the island of Capri.

Here are some stats: In the first two months, more than 3 million McItaly burgers were sold in 392 locations around Italy, which serve 600,000 clients a day. Approx 100,000 McItaly burgers have been sold per day.

There are those that are not very happy with the new menu. It has been called a "monstrous act of national betrayal."

"For many Italians, their very sense of identity lies in the food." After all, they say, "who wants to eat the same stuff the whole world over? It's boring. It's the kind of global mind-numbing sameness and taste bud-mugging mediocrity that McDonald's embodies."

But then, some Americans (Canadians and other Europeans, too, I imagine) feel the same way.

In the end, it seems the detractors won the day. The current Italian McDonald's menu doesn't carry any of the above foods. It lists the normal McDonald's foods, with the exception of some localized salads and desserts in flavors we don't find here.

We can, at least, applaud McDonald's for joining the 21st century with their first green restaurant in Italy. You can read about it here.