Meloni ally whips up ‘rich risotto' to rival antifascist pasta
Giorgia Meloni's party is increasingly using food to broadcast national pride and political allegiance. Joe Formaggio, a restaurant owner and Veneto regional councillor for the prime minister's Brothers of Italy party, has created an 'anti-communist risotto', a creamy concoction with black truffles, that has rattled Italy's left-wingers who have long championed pasta as the food of the Italian worker.
'Friends sent me the propagandist images of leftists eating sauceless pasta … and I thought, 'we have to do something',' said Formaggio who was raised in the Veneto region's Berici hills that are famed for their truffle risotto. 'There's a difference between an insipid, sauceless pasta dish and a rich risotto with truffle that has now become the culinary symbol of anti-communism.'
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