ROME • The investigators say they have a duty to defend Italy's national interests, and so they spend their days in a discreetly marked government office, scanning the Internet for dubious activity, trying to thwart one threat after the next."This looks like the fishiest thing ever," one of the food investigators, Mr Domenico Vona, said this month after some Internet sleuthing led him to an"Italian parmesan" made in Ukraine.
Italy is doing what it can to reclaim its signature cheese, as well as other mimicked food and alcohol products, in a campaign combining old food traditions and some new nationalistic sentiment. Within the European Union, foods and wines linked historically to a particular region are categorised as"geographical origin" products. And they are fiercely protected inside of the bloc.
Parmigiano reggiano is trademarked in the United States and most other countries, and the term cannot be used for non-Italian cheese. With parmesan, though, producers have nothing stopping them.