L for Love!

Oops – guess I shouldn’t have posted my upcoming shopping spree since it may interfere with being granted entry into Italy. Okay, so that’s a joke, but this isn’t: Italian Ministry of Health secretary Francesca Martini is wielding the banhammer against molecular gastronomy as an entire class of food preparation.

The Ministry thinks that “for the security of its citizens”, restaurants should no longer be permitted to use certain additives (powders) as well as “gaseous substances” (specifically liquid nitrogen) since their use ruins a perfect cuisine. A fundamentalist traditionalist gastronomic viewpoint to be certain, but the citizenry is still exposed to these additives as the ban does not extend to the food industry, and I’m guessing someone failed chemistry in high school since the “liquid” in “liquid nitrogen” describes that the nitrogen is is a liquid.

“L” for L*ddite maybe?

• Link: Caput Mundis Cibus, who broke the original story
• Link: Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana, the repository to view the text of the law

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