Dough! ‘Pasta grannies’ in historic vacationer city may very well be in sizzling water as simmering tensions over ‘manufacturing unit fraud’ claims come to the boil
Authorities in an historic Italian town are cracking down on so-called ‘pasta grannies’ amid accusations they have been passing off factory-produced pasta as handmade.
The elderly pasta-makers of the southern port town of Bari have been accused of desecrating the sacred act of making orecchiette, Italian for ‘little ears’, after white cardboard boxes that once contained factory-made pasta were found in wheelie bins on the outskirts of the city.
The city’s countless pasta grannies draw in thousands of tourists every year, and was once featured in one of Jamie Oliver‘s cookbooks.
One pasta-maker told the Telegraph: ‘Some of the women have been selling the commercially made stuff.
‘They shouldn’t have done it and now it’s given us all a bad name. My grandmother taught me to make orecchiette when I was five. If you are from here, if you come from this tradition, then you need to be honest, transparent.’
In response, authorities are cracking down on the practice by introducing rules to make sure the pasta being sold is legitimate.
A stamp of authenticity will be introduced to hold fake-sellers accountable.
Pietro Petruzzelli, city councillor in charge of economic development and tourism, said: ‘They’re small changes and they won’t cost the ladies much to adopt.
‘We want to maintain the tradition of orecchiette making but at the same time make sure they are respecting the rules.’
Authorities in an historic Italian town are cracking down on so-called ‘pasta grannies’ amid accusations they have been passing off factory-produced pasta as handmade
The elderly pasta-makers of the southern port town of Bari have been accused of desecrating the sacred act of making orecchiette (File image of woman making pasta)
Bari is an historic town in the south of Italy (File image of Bari)
Pasta-makers will have to attend a four-hour training course in order to sell pasta, and they will be subjected to regular health and hygiene checks in their homes.
They will also have to wear hairnets and rubber gloves, and will have to invest in new fridges to keep pasta products that are separate from their own fridges.
On top of this, the pasta-makers will no longer be allowed to make orecchiette outside, where dust, dirt and flies can potentially get into food.
Instead, they will have to go into tiny cramped kitchens, away from everyone else.
This particular rule has gone down badly with some of the current generation of pasta-makers.
One maker told a town meeting last week: ‘We can’t work indoors because our kitchens are too small.
‘In the summer, we’ll die of heat. We have to work outside.’
This summer, temperatures in the town reached a high of 42C.
This summer, temperatures in the town reached a high of 42C (File image)
Pasta-makers will have to attend a four-hour training course in order to sell pasta (File image)
Another pasta-maker said: ‘If they continue with all these demands, insisting we conform to the regulations, I’ll just pack up and stop work.’
The issue has become so contentious that even the Catholic church has stepped in to mediate.
Father Franco Lanzolla, parish priest from the Romanesque Cathedral of San Sabino, has stepped in to act as a mediator.
He told the meeting that there is far more at stake than food safety and poor working conditions.
He said: ‘There’s a lot of unemployment here. Without work, there are many young people who can be tempted into criminality. But if there is work, you can give them hope, a future, self-esteem.’
