Lollobrigida takes on KFC in the Dolomites, just as the Italian Social Movement and the Roman elite took on McDonald’s in 1986

In 1986, fashion designer Valentino Garavani feared that the smell of fried food would permeate his evening wear. Today, Minister Francesco Lollobrigida fears it will permeate the Dolomites. Back then it was the McDonald’s in Piazza di Spagna; now it is Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), the American fried chicken chain, which from 5 December will open two restaurants at 2,123 metres above Cortina d’Ampezzo and at 1,700 metres in Madonna di Campiglio. “I believe that the mountain environment is the polar opposite of fast-food culture,” proclaims the Minister for Food Sovereignty – that is, Lollobrigida – to Il Foglio (and subsequently in a press release). Even the members of the Italian Social Movement (MSS) were against the first McDonald’s opening in Rome back in 1986, and took to the streets alongside left-wing actors, intellectuals and singers, including Renzo Arbore and Bracardi, Claudio Villa and Luciano De Crescenzo, and Renato Nicolini, a Communist MP and former Councillor for Culture, one of the unforgettable figures of the Roman left: “We were all a bit anti-American,” recalls Goffredo Bettini, who was then secretary of the Roman branch of the Italian Communist Party. Roberto Morassut, now a PD MP and at the time a young Communist Party leader in the Appio district, adds: “Let’s just say that back then there were some very wealthy people who were all deeply concerned about the possible smell of chips, and then there was a lot of ideology that united the right and the left. ‘Nonsense from that era,’” sums up Chicco Testa, who was president of Legambiente at the time and later a Communist MP: “There was a mix of classism and sovereignty.” But who protested the most – you Communists or the Fascists? “In my opinion, it was mainly the Roman elite who owned the houses and terraces overlooking Piazza di Spagna.” This included Carlo Ripa di Meana, who lived in the area with Marina Lante della Rovere and was opposed to the project. Since then, the Roman elite have changed their address, but not their habits. In winter they head up to Cortina, where the Tridente buildings have become chalets and the Spanish Steps have turned into a black run, and the enemy has remained the same, merely in a different guise. Sovereignism, on the other hand, has gone from strength to strength and has even become a ministry. Kentucky Fried Chicken disturbs – says Lollobrigida – “the serenity of the peaks”. And canederlo, like the ibex, will be a protected species. In 1986, it ended as these things do. Valentino sued McDonald’s over odours and noise, and lost. On the morning of the opening, while rigatoni were being handed out in the square, four thousand people entered the fast-food restaurant, leaving fifty million lire at the till. Testa also knows how the story ends. The McDonald’s in Piazza di Spagna, he says, was the most profitable in the world for many years. “Do you know which one overtook it?” No. “The McDonald’s in Moscow.” The Soviet one, which opened in 1990. The ‘sovereignist’ rigatoni couldn’t stop the burger. Nor could communism, which in the meantime had joined the queue for a Big Mac.