The New York Times is all in a twist over whether it is really “Italian” food in Italy if the chef is from North Africa (link). Isn’t it a little late for that kind of discussion? Seems to me it has been years now that the “Italian” lace has been made by Chinese in Prato (link) and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of those Chinese lace makers never get any closer to Prato than Shanghai (I guess some of them do;, though I remember seeing Chinese on the chalkboards over the vegetable stands in the Mercato Centrale in Firenze back in 1998).
And come to think of it, wasn’t St. Augustine from Carthage (link)? And Emperor Septimus Severus from Libya (link)?
And the Soccer players? Where do the soccer players come from? And aren’t all the hookers from Romania? Okay, bad example, but you get the idea.
1 comment:
I suspect that Italian firms are quite circumspect about ensuring that the laceworker is actually in Italy before claiming that origin for the lacemaking.
To do otherwise would be to risk their entire business proposition--and commoditize their product, enabling foreign competitors to say "buy from our Chinese factory rather than an Italian-owned Chinese factory."
Post a Comment