Food Culture and the Far-Right - Making sense of the Italian Ban on Cultivated Meat

Abstract

Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es. Brillat-Savarin’s words describe how what we eat and how we prepare it forms part of our identity. The Bolognese tortellini, the Swabian Spätzle and the Polish Łazanki are very much different from one another. What they have in common, however, is that they do not represent merely a dish, but an essential part of regional heritages. Under the nationalist slogan of 'food sovereignty', the Italian government presents itself as the protector of Italian culinary identity with a ban on cultivated meat. From an EU law perspective, the ban is a largely ineffective ‘talk show law’. Nevertheless, it puts on the table the politics underlying food regulation and the room left for national differentiation within harmonised areas of the internal market.

Keywords

• Food regulation
• Harmonisation