Fighting in the kitchen

During the last Paris’s Agricultural Show (Salon de l'agriculture), Sarkozy, after insulting a man who refused to shake his hand ("Go away, you bloody idiot," Sarkozy said), called on UNESCO to put his country's gastronomy on its world heritage list...

This made me smile. And left me lost for words.

In fact, strictly following the French pompous standard, Sarkozy (who's not known for his gourmet tastes) declared: "I want France to be the first country to apply to UNESCO, from 2009, for our gastronomic tradition to be recognised as a world heritage. We have the best gastronomy in the world."

Mmmmh…

Italy immediately challenged France's aim of being the first country to have its cuisine put on a UN World Heritage List, with Italian farmers (Coldiretti Association) saying they produced much more speciality foods than the French.
Italian farmers said their pasta, pizza, wine and cheese could easily see off a challenge posed by the haughty French President.

The Coldiretti declaration can be easily confirmed by the fact that Italy has 166 food specialities recognised by the European Union. Poor France, as always, comes in second place with 156," said Coldiretti, adding that Italy could also "beat the Frenchies on their own ground, with Parmesan (Parmiggiano) in the area of cheeses and many wines".

Italy's superiority is also confirmed by many facts. Here’s just a short extract of them:

• Every single one knows our Pasta and our Pizza and every single one loves them.
• Italy is the queen of biological agriculture. Italy is the third country of the world for its number of biological enterprises. It comes first in Europe for the cultivation of lemons and oranges, grapes, wheat, vegetables and cereals. Italy has over 4000 restaurants, farm hotels, markets, school canteens and shops where Italians spend around 1.5 billion euro in biological products, nearly 24 euro per capita. According to a research made by the Chamber of Commerce of Milan Italy comes fourth in the world also for the number of hectares dedicated to biological crops (954.361 hectares). Italy follows Australia, China and Argentine, three countries that are bigger than Italy. Italy comes third also due to the number of enterprises (36,639) that produce or sell bio-products. Italy has won many prizes in Europe. It has won the gold medal for the number of biological products (33 pct in Europe). Italians spend around 1.5 billion year for biological foods and school canteens that use biological foods have risen by 6.4 pct from 2004. In Italy there are also 185 markets, 804 farm hotels and 1014 shops that sell biological products.
• Today, Italy is the largest producer of wine in the world with more vineyards than any other place, including France.
• Spumante is now outselling Champagne, and in 2006 exports of Prosecco broke the threshold of 100 million bottles.

On the other side, McDonalds is France's number one restaurant with over 1000 locations... how charming! France could easily ask for McDonald’s leadership in the EU and I think nobody would disagree with him!

Now, reader, you do understand the reason why I'm lost for words at Sarkozy's unintelligent idea. And I am sure you all agree with me that France should be very very careful with its future declarations about cooking.

Carla Bruni, where are you? You should intervene and let your dear Nicolas taste our specialties. Then and only then he would understand that his country is just a runner-up. Once again.