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Sorry for the radio silence, eCoolers.  We’ve been finishing up a couple of big projects here in the Compound and had to focus all our energies on getting them done.  But now we’re back to tell you about a great event that happened on Piazza del Campidoglio this morning: Marcus Aurelius declared his status as a locavore, joining Coldiretti, the Italian farmer’s union, in a campaign meant to promote “real” Italian food (rather than that imported from other countries), as well as to reassure Italians that Italian pork is safe and is not a cause of swine flu.

At 10:30am, hundreds of farmers waving yellow Coldiretti flags and wearing yellow caps were gathered in Piazza del Campidoglio amidst a sea of balloons.  Signs on the piazza, such as those shown below, made their mission clear.  One (below, left) read, “Four out of five cartons of UHT (ultra-high-temperature) pasturized milk are foreign but their labels don’t say that,” while another (below, right) suggested that Italians should only be eating Italian pork.

The publicity was hard to resist, accompanied as it was by the wonderful aroma of roasting pork, as the farmers were hard at work slicing prosciutto, salami, porchetta; roasting sausage and thinly sliced pork; and even making ricotta cheese right there on the piazza designed by Michelangelo in the 16th century.  Tourists and Romans alike milled about happily snacking on the delicious Italian delicacies and declaring their allegiance to Italian-made products as they wiped the crumbs from their face.

Though we didn’t stick around to witness his descent from the Palazzo dei Senatori, we’re told that Gianni Alemanno, Rome’s mayor ,came out of his office for a noon-time snack and nibbled on some prosciutto and salami before making a brief speech in which he assured his listeners that swine flu could not be contracted by eating pork, that the Italian food supply is among the safest in the world, and that those products unique to Italy must be defended as part of the country’s cultural heritage.

As events like today’s manifestazione or demonstration suggest, the Coldiretti union is a great defender of food as an important part of Italian culture.  In April, they announced that Italy has the unusual honor of being the most-faked country of origin for agricultural produce in the world, estimating that over 50 billion euros are made each year in the proudction of counterfeit Italian food products.  To make the point, they set up a museum of “fake foods” for deligates to the Agriculture G8 meeting in Cison di Valmarino, Italy.  Those countries in which fake Italian foods are most common are the U.S., Austrialia, and New Zealand, though such counterfeiting is becoming increasingly common in China as well. Featured in the G8 museum were blocks of parmigiano romano made in Illinois with cow’s milk rather than the requisite sheep’s milk, parma ham produced in Spain, fake Tuscan and Milanese salamis, and much more.