30-07-2025
Meloni ally whips up ‘rich risotto' to rival antifascist pasta
T wo staples of Italian cuisine — pasta and risotto — have once again become pawns in a century-old ideological row that has shifted the playing field of Italian politics from parliament to the kitchen.
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.'
