World News - eating

Oct

2012

5:38am, EDT

Snacking tourists fined after Rome declares 'War on the Sandwich'

Andreas Solaro / AFP - Getty Images, file

Tourists seek shade from the sun on the steps of Piazza di Spagna in central Rome on July 30.

By Claudio Lavanga, NBC News

ROME -- It’s one of the highlights of any trip to Rome: Sitting on the Spanish Steps eating a real Italian gelato. But on Oct. 1, it became a potentially costly vacation memory.

The mayor of the "eternal city" has made it illegal to eat snacks and junk food on or around its monuments.

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Tourists will still be allowed to eat while they walk, but stop with a bag of chips in your hands or sit down while chewing on your panino, and you are eligible for a fine of 25 to 500 euros ($32 to $650). An Italian daily newspaper dubbed it the “War on the Sandwich.”

Dressed in their white and blue uniforms, local police officers Alessio Valentini and Magdi Adib were on patrol Thursday looking for anyone daring to flout the new law.

They shoved away a group of young Dutch tourists who sat next to the Colosseum to enjoy their pizzas. “Go, go,” Adib told the bemused boys, who didn’t know which crime they had committed.

'Out of control'
The officers told NBC News they had fined seven tourists -- all foreigners -- since the morning. The standard penalty was 50 euros ($65).

“We could have given tickets to many more, but you have to apply some reason,” Adib said. “If they drink a bottle of water it’s OK, but if they camp out, we fine them.”

“Eating on monuments can really get out of control,” he added. “Once I caught a group of tourists who set a table on the Spanish Steps, with table cloth and cutlery! This has to stop.”

Andreas Solaro / AFP - Getty Images, file

Tourists enjoy ice cream in central Rome on July 30, before the new decree came into force.

Valentini agreed with his partner. “I once caught a tourist chopping a watermelon in the fountain at Piazza Navona,” he told NBC News. “Now we have a way to stop them.”

Rome's leaning Colosseum has experts worried

A young German tourist, who was sitting nearby and eating a sandwich, couldn’t believe it at first when told about the decree.

“What? It’s full of food carts around here … where am I supposed to eat?” he said.

Tourists sitting on the Spanish Steps shared his bewilderment.

Both a Chinese tourist eating ice cream from a cup and a Romanian digging from a bag of chips while admiring the sunset over Via Condotti pointed out that there were no signs explaining the new law and asked how were they supposed to know about the rule.

When asked about this complaint, three local policemen patrolling the area told NBC News that there was no need for a sign.

“It’s common sense,” one officer said. “You can’t dirty such a beautiful and historical monument with ice cream and bread crumbs just because you can sit on it.”

They too had handed out many fines, but worried that in the end the penalty would not be paid.

“Most of them are foreigners, so I doubt they will pay the ticket before they go back to their countries," the officer said. "It’s more likely they’ll keep it as a souvenir."

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Apr

2012

9:25am, EDT

Will France stomach a non-cheese-eating Nicolas Sarkozy as president?

Yoan Valat / Pool via Reuters

President Nicolas Sarkozy visits a cheese factory in Vallieres in the French Alps on Feb. 16.

By Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

It’s a matter of (spurious) debate if France’s president is a “surrender monkey,” but one thing seems clear: He is no longer cheese-eating.

Nicolas Sarkozy decided to stop savoring "le fromage" after meals, the AFP reported in an article on the kitchens at the presidential Elysee Palace. His chef said Sarkozy was trying to eat healthily, preferring "light, balanced meals and poultry to red meat," AFP added.

The term “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” was first used on "The Simpsons" and was popularized by National Review journalist Jonah Goldberg, who claimed he had made it “an accepted term in official diplomatic channels around the globe.”

Most French people would surely object to the idea of being “surrender monkeys,” but they would likely embrace the term “cheese-eating” wholeheartedly.

National pride
The variety and flavor of cheeses to be found across France is a matter of national and regional pride, a subject that can fire considerable passion.

As the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper noted, Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French forces during the Second World War and later president, once declared, “How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 different kinds of cheese?”

It remains to be seen if a non-cheese-eating leader is acceptable to the French electorate, who will decide whether Sarkozy remains in the Elysee in presidential elections in just three weeks’ time.

It's been a tough reelection fight for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been trailing in the polls, but the recent Toulouse terror attacks and Sarkozy's sharp swing to the right have given him at least a temporary boost. ITV's James Mates reports.

Presidential chef Bernard Vaussion, who has cooked for five French presidents, may have made an inadvertent intervention into the world of politics by declaring that cheese was “too much” for Sarkozy, as reported by the Telegraph’s Paris correspondent Henry Samuel.

Samuel also noted Sarkozy had caused a minor diplomatic incident in October last year when he remarked to another European leader that German Chancellor Angela Merkel “says she is on a diet and then helps herself to a second helping of cheese.”

An anti-cheese French president? Quelle horreur!

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