Carbonara row in Brussels Why Italy's minister is freaking out over a sauce

In the EU Parliament supermarket, Italy's Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida discovers an "Italian" carbonara sauce with pancetta, cream and tricolore on the label - and sounds the alarm. Rome speaks of "fake Italian", the farmers' association of billions in losses.

Italy has a new pasta scandal - and this time it's not in Rome, but in a European Parliament supermarket in Brussels. There, Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida has discovered jars of ready-made sauces that are supposed to look like "real" Italian classics, but in his opinion are not. The result: a public outcry and the next political exchange of blows over the question of how much Italy should actually be in "Italian style".

The minister from the right-wing nationalist Fratelli d'Italia party of head of government Giorgia Meloni came across a carbonara sauce that advertises "Italiaanse pancetta" - i.e. with pancetta - as well as a tomato sauce with onions "from Calabria".

For purists, this is a sacrilege in more ways than one: classic Roman carbonara is prepared with guanciale, cured pork cheek - and without cream. However, according to theGuardian, one of the sauces consists of almost 40 percent cream.

Italy has been fighting for years

Lollobrigida railed on Facebook that these products embodied "the worst" of the phenomenon of "Italian-sounding" food. It was "unacceptable" that such jars were being sold in a store inside the EU Parliament, of all places, and he had ordered "immediate checks".

The trouble did not come out of nowhere. Italy has been fighting for years against so-called "Italian sounding" products - goods that play with colors, names or symbols of Italian origin without actually coming from Italy. The farmers' association Coldiretti speaks of an economic loss of around 120 billion euros per year and warns that more than two thirds of all "Italian" agricultural products marketed worldwide have no connection to Italy at all. Paradoxically, the biggest counterfeiters are located in industrialized countries such as the USA, according to a statement.

The market for pasta and cheese in particular is full of imitations: from "Parmesan" from Wisconsin to pseudo-mozzarella. For Rome, it's not just about money, but also about culinary identity - and sovereignty over recipes that have long been globalized.

The sauces now being criticized come from the Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize's own brand and bear an Italian flag on the packaging, as the Guardian reports.

Timing is probably no coincidence

Under EU law, a product can be considered misleading if the label and packaging suggest a different origin than is actually the case. This is precisely where Lollobrigida comes in when he claims that customers could be misled about the true origin.

However, according to reports from Brussels, the sauces neither explicitly state "Made in Italy" nor do they deny their Belgian background; they merely contain individual ingredients from Italy.

Whether this actually constitutes "deception" in the legal sense would first have to be examined by the supervisory authorities. According to the Italian media, the minister has asked the relevant authorities for a formal investigation.

The timing of the outrage is no coincidence: Italy is currently awaiting Unesco's decision on whether Italian cuisine will be recognized as intangible cultural heritage. An approval would provide Rome with additional ammunition to take action on the international stage against alleged "dilution" of its own food culture.

Parties such as the Fratelli d'Italia also use the issue to stage cultural demarcation - the fight against "fake Italian" quickly turns into a signal of identity politics to their own electorate. The fact that those affected continue to buy frozen lasagne and ready-made sauces in their everyday lives is one of the contradictions of this debate.

Delhaize has not yet commented publicly on the criticism.