Italy's agriculture minister is urging Italians to keep imported pineapples off their holiday tables _ but says drinking espresso is still OK.
Luca Zaia denied Thursday that his appeal to get Italians eating foods grown locally was protectionist.
"It's not a campaign against pineapple. It's a symbol of a product that travels 2,500 kilometers to arrive at our tables, while in Italy we cultivate 4,500 typical products," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
While coffee-loving Italy also imports beans for one of their favorite beverages, Zaia said he isn't issuing a similar appeal, because there are no local alternatives.
"At Christmas, people should eat typical Italian products, like zampone and cotechino," Zaia said, referring to two sausage-like northern Italian holiday specialties traditionally served with lentils. Zampone is a pig's foot stuffed with pork meat and cotechino is pig's skin stuffed with pork meat.
A typical holiday food basket, a common gift among friends in Italy, often includes tropical fruit, alongside local specialties such as zampone, cotechino and panetone sweet holiday bread.
If looking for a more suitable alternative to pineapple, "people could eat oranges, mandarins, apples and kiwi," Zaia said, noting Italy is a leading producer of kiwi.
Italian agriculture contributes 60 billion ($84.35 billion) to the country's gross domestic product, Zaia said, with more than 1 million farms producing.
"There isn't a head of state or agriculture minister in the world who doesn't want to give a hand to the agriculture producers. There's nothing scandalous," Zaia said.
