{"id":7011,"date":"2014-09-02T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=7011"},"modified":"2014-09-03T13:22:01","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T13:22:01","slug":"an-ice-cream-for-the-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/an-ice-cream-for-the-prime-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"An Ice Cream for the Prime Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s cover page of the European edition of The Economist<\/span><\/strong><\/a> carried the image of a sinking paper boat made from a 20 euro note. Standing in the boat are, from right to left: the German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, the French President Francois Hollande, and the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and seated behind them is the President of the European Bank Mario Draghi trying to bale out the water. In the image, Renzi is shown with an ice cream in his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"renzi\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Photo: <\/span><\/em><\/strong>La Repubblica<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This satirical image immediately evoked cries of outrage from the Italian press and politicians: \u201cItaly has been offended\u201d was the general consensus. Matteo Renzi, however, far from feeling offended, responded to the \u201cinsult\u201d like a typical fiorentino<\/strong> (person from Florence<\/span><\/strong><\/a>) \u2026 with an ironic sense of playful humour. On Friday morning, after the Cabinet meeting, Renzi walked down to meet the press in the courtyard of Palazzo Chigi, where he was greeted by a traditional ice cream vender that he had specially arranged to pay them all a visit. He then proceeded to offer the members of the press a real Italian home made cornetto.<\/p>\n

As Renzi pointed out, the ice cream shown in the Economist\u2019s satirical image was un gelato confezionato<\/strong>, that is, a factory made ice cream. However, he would have personally chosen un gelato artigianale<\/strong>, a traditional homemade ice cream. Che gusto preferisce?<\/strong> (Which flavour does he prefer?) Limone e crema<\/strong> (lemon and custard).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a transcription of his speech given a few minutes later to the press, in which he explains the reasons for his action:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Matteo-Renzi-e-il-gelato-di-Grom-640x425\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Click on the photo above to watch an excerpt from Renzi\u2019s<\/strong> press conference Photo from <\/strong>dissapore<\/strong><\/span><\/a> <\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u201cBuongiorno a tutti, buonasera anzi! Abbiamo deciso di \u2026 vedo l\u2019entusiasmo della Meli*. Abbiamo deciso di, di \u2026 ironizzare e scherzare perch\u00e9 ho letto stamattina il taglio e il tono di alcuni offesi: \u2018ah l\u2019Italia insultata per la copertina dell\u2019Economist!\u2019 Ho letto dei commenti davvero, che ho trovato, \u2026 (mancanza di audio) \u2026 ma che trovo persino eeehhh fuori scala, eeehhh quindi ho voluto con una battuta dimostrare che \u2026 rispetto ai pregiudizi che l\u2019Italia solitamente suscita eeehhh dobbiamo essere capaci di dimostrare la realt\u00e0 dei fatti, per esempio che il gelato artigianale \u00e8 sicuramente pi\u00f9 buono del gelato confezionato, e che non ci offendiamo certo per considerazioni o critiche che arrivino da chicchessia, anche perch\u00e9 siamo assolutamente convinti che il lavoro che stiamo svolgendo in questi giorni, in queste settimane \u00e8 un lavoro importante, serio \u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"gelato\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Il tuo gusto preferito, qual \u00e8? (What\u2019s your favourite flavour?). Photo (CC) by<\/strong>Piano Piano!<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u201cGood morning everybody, or rather good afternoon! We decided to \u2026 I can see Meli\u2019s*<\/span> enthusiasm. We decided to, to \u2026 be ironic and to make a joke because this morning I read the style and tone of some of those who were offended: \u2018ah, Italy insulted because of the cover page of the Economist!\u2019 I actually read some comments which I found \u2026 (lack of audio) \u2026 but which I find really umm out of proportion, umm therefore I wanted to demonstrate through a joke that \u2026 compared to the prejudices which Italy usually elicits umm we must be able to show how things really are, for example that homemade ice cream is undoubtedly nicer than industrial ice cream, and that we certainly don\u2019t get offended by anyone\u2019s thoughts or criticisms, because we are convinced that the work we are carrying out in these days, in these weeks is important, and serious \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

After all, real Italian ice-cream is famous throughout the world. It\u2019s something that we\u2019re proud of!<\/p>\n

* Maria Teresa Meli is a journalist from the newspaper Corriere della Sera<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Last week\u2019s cover page of the European edition of The Economist carried the image of a sinking paper boat made from a 20 euro note. Standing in the boat are, from right to left: the German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, the French President Francois Hollande, and the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and seated behind…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":7033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[16908],"class_list":["post-7011","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-italian-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7011"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7082,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7011\/revisions\/7082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}